Male and Female Mosquito (Diptera: Culicidae) Attraction to Sound and Its Relevance to Potential Applications in Vector Surveillance
Cassandra H Steele , Emily G McDermott, Male and Female Mosquito (Diptera: Culicidae) Attraction to Sound and Its Relevance to Potential Applications in Vector Surveillance, Annals of the Entomological Society of America, Volume 115, Issue 1, January 2022, Pages 113–126, https://doi.org/10.1093/aesa/saab045
Mosquito hearing is a complex process primarily involved in intraspecific communication between males and females. Although mosquitoes previously were believed to possess a relatively rudimentary auditory system, we now know that they can hear sounds at greater distances and process sounds through an efferent pathway, similar to vertebrates. In mating swarms, mosquitoes use acoustic signals created by conspecific wingbeats to locate and respond to one another through harmonic convergence. Male capture is an emerging area of interest for monitoring sterile insect release programs, and numerous studies have explored using female flight tones (wing-beat frequencies) to attract and capture male mosquitoes by altering or developing novel acoustic traps. It is also important to consider sound pattern, volume, and sound pressure levels of broadcasted noises, as well as implementing other attractive cues, such as swarm markers, to acoustic traps to increase success in the field. Female attraction to sound-baited traps has also been explored in the laboratory and field, using frequencies similar to male wing-beats and stereotypical vertebrate host calls, such as frogs and birds. In this review, the physiological and behavioral aspects of mosquito hearing are explored, as well as the importance of acoustic signals for mate choice and successful mating. The use of acoustic traps for male and female capture are discussed, as well as the implications for vector surveillance, and the limitations to using these traps.
Starting in the 1800s, researchers have experimented with adult mosquito attraction to acoustic signals, the first being Hermann Landois in 1874, who showed that male mosquitoes could be attracted to different tones broadcasted using tuning forks ( Belton 1994). Since then, a body of literature on the physiological and behavioral responses related to mosquito hearing has emerged ( Table 1). Early studies focused on mate-seeking male mosquito attraction to female wing-beats ( Kahn and Offenhauser 1949), and female mosquito responses to male wing-beat frequencies in the laboratory and field ( Ikeshoji 1981, Ikeshoji and Ogawa 1988). The fundamental wing-beat frequencies of male and female mosquitoes can vary by species ( Table 2), so there has been interest in their use for surveillance and control efforts. Fundamental frequency is defined as the lowest frequency in a periodic waveform, and it is the natural mosquito wing-beat frequency ( Robert 2009). When male and female mosquitoes are in proximity to one another, such as in mating swarms, harmonic convergence, or frequency matching, occurs ( Cator et al. 2009, Warren et al. 2009, Pennetier et al. 2010). This phenomenon may be associated with mating success or female choice, or maybe a byproduct of forming a mid-air copula ( Andrés et al. 2020). Wekesa et al. (1998) suggested that males use flight tones to identify a conspecific female in mixed mating swarms to prevent hybrid offspring. Several studies have been successful in capturing male mosquitoes using sound-baited traps broadcasting species-specific tones. Recent research has mainly focused on capturing male mosquitoes to monitor sterile male release programs by broadcasting the fundamental wing-beat frequency of conspecific females using modified traps ( Stone et al. 2013, Johnson and Ritchie 2016, Balestrino et al. 2016, Pantoja-Sánchez et al. 2019a, Staunton et al. 2021a, b, c). Additionally, there is evidence that female mosquitoes can hear and respond to certain biologically relevant sounds, like male wingbeats and host vocalizations, though results of studies examining these behaviors have sometimes been inconsistent ( Ikeshoji 1981, Leemingsawat et al. 1988, Thongrungkiat 1990, Borkent and Belton 2006, Camp et al. 2018).
