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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Gainesville, Florida » Center for Medical, Agricultural and Veterinary Entomology » Mosquito and Fly Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #127182
Title: DEVELOPMENT OF ATTRACTANT BLENDS AND DISCOVERY OF ATTRACTION-INHIBITORS FOR MOSQUITOES

Author
item Bernier, Ulrich
item Kline, Daniel - Dan
item Barnard, Donald

Submitted to: Texas Mosquito Control Association Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 2/18/2001
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary: NA

Technical Abstract: The discovery of mosquito attractants that are highly efficient and do not require carbon dioxide will improve the accuracy of surveillance traps, and lead to traps that are less costly to operate. So far, attractant blends h been developed for Aedes aegypti and Anopheles albimanus. Binary blends, formulated with compounds detected on human skin, collect 80-100 percent of fmosquitoes in laboratory olfactometer bioassays. Further improvement to formulate a three-compound blend was possible by comparing blends in competitive bioassays against each other. The three-component blend is capable of attracting a greater proportion of mosquitoes than some humans, fails to do so against most human subjects. Recent discovery of human- produced attractant-inhibitors has significantly contributed to the ability shift preference from a human host to synthetic attractant blend. Addition these compounds to human odors results in mosquitoes having equal or much greater preference for the synthetic blend in nearly all cases tested. The ability of these inhibitors to mask human odors has been observed for all mosquito species tested to date.