Anopheline and culicine mosquitoes are not repelled by surfaces treated with the entomopathogenic fungi Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana
Mnyone, Ladslaus L., Koenraadt, Constantianus J.M., Lyimo, Issa N., Mpingwa, Monica W., Takken, Willem, and Russell, Tanya L. (2010) Anopheline and culicine mosquitoes are not repelled by surfaces treated with the entomopathogenic fungi Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana. Parasites & Vectors, 3. 80.
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Abstract
Background: Entomopathogenic fungi, Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana, are promising bio-pesticides for application against adult malaria mosquito vectors. An understanding of the behavioural responses of mosquitoes towards these fungi is necessary to guide development of fungi beyond the 'proof of concept' stage and to design suitable intervention tools.
Methods: Here we tested whether oil-formulations of the two fungi could be detected and avoided by adult Anopheles gambiae s.s., Anopheles arabiensis and Culex quinquefasciatus. The bioassays used a glass chamber divided into three compartments (each 250 × 250 × 250 mm): release, middle and stimulus compartments. Netting with or without fungus was fitted in front of the stimulus compartment. Mosquitoes were released and the proportion that entered the stimulus compartment was determined and compared between treatments. Treatments were untreated netting (control 1), netting with mineral oil (control 2) and fungal conidia formulated in mineral oil evaluated at three different dosages (2 × 1010, 4 × 1010 and 8 × 1010 conidia m-2).
Results: Neither fungal strain was repellent as the mean proportion of mosquitoes collected in the stimulus compartment did not differ between experiments with surfaces treated with and without fungus regardless of the fungal isolate and mosquito species tested.
Conclusion: Our results indicate that mineral-oil formulations of M. anisopliae and B. bassiana were not repellent against the mosquito species tested. Therefore, both fungi are suitable candidates for the further development of tools that aim to control host-seeking or resting mosquitoes using entomopathogenic fungi.
| Item ID: | 34735 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1756-3305 |
| Additional Information: | © 2010 Mnyone et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Funders: | Adessium Foundation, the Netherlands |
| Date Deposited: | 18 Sep 2014 04:32 |
| FoR Codes: | 06 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 0608 Zoology > 060808 Invertebrate Biology @ 50% 11 MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES > 1117 Public Health and Health Services > 111799 Public Health and Health Services not elsewhere classified @ 50% |
| SEO Codes: | 92 HEALTH > 9204 Public Health (excl. Specific Population Health) > 920407 Health Protection and/or Disaster Response @ 50% 96 ENVIRONMENT > 9604 Control of Pests, Diseases and Exotic Species > 960405 Control of Pests, Diseases and Exotic Species at Regional or Larger Scales @ 50% |
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