Can Aedes aegypti females act as lufenuron carriers to larval habitats?

HARBURGUER, LAURA; MASUH, HÉCTOR; GONZALEZ, PAULA V.

San Diego

Congreso; 83rd AMCA Annual Meeting; 2017

American Mosquito Control Association

Insect growth regulators (IGRs) are considered a new generation of insecticides having great prospects for insect control. The activity of IGRs generally results in the reduction of adult emergence of the target insect. However, they seem to have side effects, particularly on female reproduction following larval IGR treatments, for example, effects on fecundity (increase or diminution of the number of eggs laid) and on fertility (reduction of hatchability or viability of eggs). Several studies have demonstrated that blood fed females of Ae. aegypti (L.) that had been forced into contact with surfaces treated with the IGR pyriproxyfen belonging to the juvenile hormone analogs group, transported sufficient amounts of the IGR to disrupt larval development in untreated oviposition sites. However there are no studies that show the existence of this phenomenon with IGR belonging to the chitin synthesis inhibitors group.In this work Ae. aegypti females were exposed to a concentration between 0.2 and 0.8 mg i.a./cm2 of lufenuron, were blood fed and then transferred into cages with 250 ml beaker containing an oviposition paper and 15 late 3rd/early 4th stadium larvae in 100 ml of declorinated water. After 3 days beakers containing larvae were collected and mortalilty and emergence were recorded daily. We found that adult females can deliver biologically active amounts of lufenuron to larval habitats depending on the doses and the number of females used.Results of this work show that the innate behaviors of adult mosquitoes can be exploited to transfer IGRs to larval habitats as an integrated vector control strategy to improve Ae. aegypti population control and potentially reduce dengue and zika transmission.