BSP-8-2 Sun Jan 3 16:45 – 17:00 How do mosquitoes escape visual threats? Wynne, NE*; Chandrasegaran, K; Vinauger, C; Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University nwynne@vt.edu
Mosquitoes’ survival is largely dependent on them surviving interactions with their hosts. Female mosquitoes require the proteins and nutrients found in the blood of their hosts in order to produce progeny. However, obtaining a blood meal from mobile and defensive hosts is not a trivial task. It requires them being able to detect, process, and evade threats posed by their predators as well as their hosts (e.g. swatts). Using LED displays, we first determined that landed Aedes aegypti mosquitoes exhibit an evasive response to a visual looming stimulus that mimics a rapidly approaching hand. These mosquitoes escaped looming stimuli from a wide range of angles and displayed similar evasion strategies, i.e.avoiding the line of interception of the looming object, regardless of its direction of approach. Since a major part of a mosquito’s life revolves around blood feeding, we analyzed how the presence of a blood source impacts their decision making when presented with this same visual threat. For this, we introduced the looming stimulus to females while blood feeding on an artificial feeder to determine the extent to which the behavioral context affects their response to the stimulus. Finally, we developed new methods to record electrophysiologically from the optic lobes of mosquitoes while stimulated with visual threats. The significance of these results will be discussed in the context of their application to vector disease control tools.