RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 A persistent behavioral state enables sustained predation of humans by mosquitoes
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.10.06.463436
DO 10.1101/2021.10.06.463436
A1 Trevor R. Sorrells
A1 Anjali Pandey
A1 Adriana Rosas-Villegas
A1 Leslie B. Vosshall
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/12/24/2021.10.06.463436.abstract
AB Predatory animals pursue prey in a noisy sensory landscape, deciding when to continue or abandon their chase. The mosquito Aedes aegypti is a micropredator that first detects humans at a distance through sensory cues such as carbon dioxide. As a mosquito nears its target it senses more proximal cues such as body heat that guides it to a meal of blood. How long the search for blood continues after initial detection of a human is not known. Here we show that a 5-second optogenetic pulse of fictive carbon dioxide induced a persistent behavioral state in female mosquitoes that lasted for more than 10 minutes. This state is highly specific to females searching for a blood meal and was not induced in recently blood-fed females or in males, who do not feed on blood. In males that lack the gene fruitless, which controls persistent social behaviors in other insects, fictive carbon dioxide induced a long-lasting behavior response resembling the predatory state of females. Finally, we show that the persistent state triggered by detection of fictive carbon dioxide enabled females to engorge on a blood meal mimic offered up to 14 minutes after the initial 5-second stimulus. Our results demonstrate that a persistent internal state allows female mosquitoes to integrate multiple human sensory cues over long timescales, an ability that is key to their success as an apex micropredator of humans.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.