Chemical ecology of mosquitoes : A review of multitrophic interactions in Culicidae.
Abstract
In the world of mosquitoes, it is not until 1922 with Rudolfs’s work on the chemotropism of mosquitoes that the role of chemicals in their biology was explored. In between, studies by Sandhlom and Price (1962), Thorsteinson and Brust (1962), Hancock and Forster (1982), Healy and Jepson (1988) and Clements’s textbook on mosquitoes (1999) synthesized several aspects of olfaction, sensory reception and behaviour. Since, odor-mediated host interactions have been investigated but it is recently that behavioural aspects like mosquito-plant interactions have been studied. This poster gives an overview of the major developments in the chemical ecology at different levels: insect-host preferences (attraction to vertebrates), insect-plant relationships (attractants and repellents), insect-insect ( swarms…), insect-environment using new tools like the molecular biology of mosquito olfaction, electrophysiology and covering various aspects of emission, perception, odor coding…The results have implications in integrated vector management strategies.