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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Gainesville, Florida » Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology » Mosquito and Fly Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #188430
Title: LABORATORY AND FIELD ASSESSMENT OF SOME KAIROMONE BLENDS FOR HOST-SEEKING AEDES AEGYPTI

Author
item WILLIAMS, CRAIG - JAMES COOK UNIV
item RITCHIE, SCOTT - JAMES COOK UNIV
item BERGBAUER, RAMONA - UNIV OF REGENSBURG
item RUSSELL, RICHARD - UNIV OF SYDNEY
item Kline, Daniel - Dan
item Bernier, Ulrich
item GEIER, MARTIN - UNIV OF REGENSBURG

Submitted to: Journal of the Mosquito Control Association
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/25/2006
Publication Date: 12/1/2006
Citation: Williams, C.R., Ritchie, S.A., Bergbauer, R., Russell, R.C., Kline, D.L., Bernier, U.R., Geier, M. 2006. LABORATORY AND FIELD ASSESSMENT OF SOME KAIROMONE BLENDS FOR HOST-SEEKING AEDES AEGYPTI. Journal of the Mosquito Control Association. 22:641-647.

Interpretive Summary: Surveillance traps allow mosquito control professionals to estimate the types of mosquitoes and relative number of mosquitoes in an area. The efficiency of these traps to collect insects is limited partly by the unavailability of attractive lures. Lures, developed by scientists around the world including those at the Center for Medical, Agricultural, and Veterinary Entomology, in Gainesville, FL were tested for their attractiveness in laboratory and field experiments using Yellow Fever (Aedes aegypti) mosquitoes from Australia, Brazil, Singapore, and the United States. This research also examines combinations and chemical additives to these lures that make them even more effective attractants and indicated that the most attractive blend for this mosquito species contained 5 compounds. Finally, this paper describes a relatively new mosquito surveillance trap in which we tested lures and different release rates. It was found that collection of mosquitoes in this trap was not impacted by neither the lure, nor the release rate. This work is intended to benefit researchers in the area of mosquito surveillance, monitoring, and control and professionals that perform surveillance in mosquito control and abatement districts.

Technical Abstract: Using laboratory y-tube olfactometers we examined whether lactic acid, a key Aedes aegypti (L.) attractant, and two proprietary kairomone blends (the USDA blend and the BG blend) incorporating this compound, were attractive to a range of geographically disparate populations from North Queensland Australia (N Qld Aust), Florida USA, Minas Gerais Brazil (MG Brazil) and Singapore. In descending order of attractiveness, all four populations were attracted to the USDA blend, the BG blend and lactic acid in a laboratory bioassay. MG Brazil mosquitoes exhibited a particularly poor attraction to lactic acid alone. The attractiveness of the blends was usually less than that of human odor. As part of an effort to develop a ‘lure and kill’ technology for north Queensland, a significant aim of our work was to find the optimum kairomone blend for attracting local Ae. aegypti, so proprietary blends were modified and their attractiveness assessed. Adding acetone to the BG blend, and ammonia and caproic acid to the USDA blend, improved attraction to each of those blends in the laboratory. The attraction of these blends in the field was assessed by coupling them with a newly developed Ae. aegypti trap, the BG-Sentinel, in north Queensland. Field trials were carried out using four blends (BG blend, BG blend plus acetone, USDA blend, USDA blend plus ammonia and caproic acid) and a control trap with no kairomones added. The traps proved to be highly effective in capturing Ae. aegypti, with mean 24 hr collections ranging from 4.40 – 11.15 Ae. aegypti per trap, with this species forming 91.7% of collections. However, there were no significant differences in trap efficacy with different kairomone blends, and the unbaited control trap was equally effective. This indicates that the BG-Sentinel has visual and anemotactic attractive properties for Ae. aegypti, but that the kairomone lures (at the doses tested here) would add little or nothing to the trap’s effectiveness in north Queensland, although their performance with other dispensing methods and traps remains to be determined.