PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Poda, Serge Bèwadéyir
AU  - Buatois, Bruno
AU  - Lapeyre, Benoit
AU  - Dormont, Laurent
AU  - Diabaté, Abdoulaye
AU  - Gnankiné, Olivier
AU  - Dabiré, Roch K.
AU  - Roux, Olivier
TI  - No Evidence for Long-range Male Sex Pheromones in Two Malaria Mosquitoes
AID  - 10.1101/2020.07.05.187542
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.07.05.187542
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/11/2020.07.05.187542.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/11/2020.07.05.187542.full
AB  - Cues involved in mate seeking and recognition prevent hybridization and can be involved in speciation processes. In malaria mosquitoes, females of the two sibling species Anopheles gambiae s.s. and An. coluzzii mate in monospecific male swarms and hybrids are rare. Long-range sex pheromones driving this behavior have been debated in literature but to date, no study has proven their existence or their absence. Here, we attempted to bring to light their existence. To put all the odds in our favor, we used different chemical ecology methods such as behavioral and electrophysiological assays as well chemical analyses, and we worked with mosquitoes at their optimal physiological mating state i.e. with swarming males during their natural swarming windows. Despite all our efforts, our results support the absence of long-range sex pheromones involved in swarm detection and recognition by females. We briefly discuss the implications of this finding in ecology, evolution and for control strategies.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.