Meeting Abstract
P3.149 Sunday, Jan. 6 Visual and Olfactory Learning in Anopheles stephensi and Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. LUTZ, E.K.*; RIFFELL, J; University of Washington; University of Washington lutze@uw.edu
The host seeking behavior of disease-vector mosquitoes may be impacted by olfactory and visual learning. By enabling mosquitoes to better find prey, this behavior may allow mosquitoes to remain longer in the environment, transmitting diseases to more organisms. Recent work has shown that mosquitoes respond to Pavlovian conditioning that pairs visual and olfactory cues with an unconditioned stimulus. However, the relative importance of each sensory system has not yet been explored. In addition, there is little research that compares the learning abilities of two different mosquito species. We investigated both subjects using Aedes aegypti and Anopheles stephensi. Firstly, the Riffell lab conducted appetitive conditioning experiments on Anopheles stephensi. We found that Anopheles learned well when both visual and olfactory cues accompanied a reward, but were unable to learn with only olfactory cues. Similar behavior was seen in Aedes aegypti: The animals learned successfully when both visual and olfactory cues were present, but responded poorly when given only an olfactory stimulus. These data suggest that olfactory cues are insufficient to induce conditioned behavior. However, a combination of olfactory and visual cues is sufficient for learning. Interestingly, Aedes aegypti also demonstrated an ability to associate a location with an appetitive reward. This behavior was only observable in experiments that used an innately attractive odor (nonanol) as the predictor of a reward. Aedes demonstrated a strong preference for the conditioned location over the conditioned olfactory stimulus. This suggests that mosquito learning may be more multifaceted than previously proposed. Further research will provide valuable information that may be useful in ameliorating the spread of mosquito hosts of virulent diseases.
