Does Paternal Health Status in Mosquitoes Influence Maternal Offspring Results?
Scientists at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences are one step closer to learning the factors that ultimately lead to characteristic differences in mosquito offspring—a key takeaway in the make-up of mosquito species and a critical finding in the continued research of mosquito-borne illnesses.
“There are greater than 3,000 mosquito species around the world, and they are the most dangerous animal on the planet,” said Barry Alto, a UF/IFAS associate professor of entomology at the Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory and a co-author on a new study. “The reason is because they cause human illnesses and deaths attributable to the pathogens they transmit ranging from malaria and filarial parasites to viruses.”
In the latest study, “Paternal and maternal effects in a mosquito: A bridge for life history in transition” published in the Journal of Insect Physiology, researchers Kylie Zirbel Yanchula, lead author and a UF/IFAS doctoral graduate, and Alto used the yellow fever mosquito, known scientifically as Aedes aegypti, to take a fundamental look at the biology of this species. Specifically, they asked whether the quality of the mosquito mate influences reproductive allocation of resources such as macronutrients (lipids and proteins) to their offspring.
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