A simple and reliable method for longitudinal assessment of untethered mosquito induced flight activity

Abstract

Aedes aegypti adult females are key vectors of several arboviruses and flight activity plays a central role in mosquito biology and disease transmission. Available methods to quantify mosquito flight usually require special devices and mostly assess spontaneous locomotor activity at individual level. Here, we developed a new method to determine longitudinal untethered adult A. aegypti induced flight activity: the INduced FLight Activity TEst (INFLATE). This method was an adaptation of the "rapid iterative negative geotaxis" assay to assess locomotor activity in Drosophila and explore the spontaneous behavior of mosquito to fly upon a physical stress. Insects were placed on a plastic cage previously divided in four vertical quadrants and flight performance was carried out by tapping cages towards the laboratory bench. After one minute, the number of insects per quadrant was registered by visual inspection and categorized in five different scores. By using INFLATE, we observed that flight performance was not influenced by repeated testing, sex or 5 % ethanol intake. However, induced flight activity was strongly affected by aging, blood meal and inhibition of mitochondrial complex I. This simple and rapid method allows the longitudinal assessment of induced flight activity of multiple untethered mosquitoes and may contribute to a better understanding of A. aegypti dispersal biology. 2

Behavioural alterations in femaleAedes aegyptimosquito in response to entomopathogenic fungal infections

“…The female A. aegypti mosquitoes are the main vectors of numerous arboviruses and their flight activity has a fundamental role in disease transmission and mosquito biology. 38 A brief understanding of the behavioural aspects of vectors with comprehensive evaluation of mosquito flight activity is essential for proper and improved implementation of the vector control strategies. 39 Flight activity is crucial for blood feeding, mating, reproduction, predator avoidance, and overall for the survival of the mosquitoes.…”