Abstract
BackgroundTrapping male mosquitoes in the field is essential for the development of area-wide vector control programs with a sterile insect technique (SIT) component. To determine the optimal temporal and spatial release strategy, an estimation of the wild population density and its temporal dynamics is essential. Among the traps available for such data collection, the BG-Sentinel trap developed by the Biogents company uses a combination of visual cues, convection currents and olfactory signals. Although in numerous cases, this trap has shown high efficiency in sampling Aedes albopictus, in some cases low capture rates of Ae. albopictus males were recorded for the BG-sentinel mosquito trap baited with synthetic attractants.MethodsThe effects of modifying the BG-sentinel trap (by adding one mouse, two or three live mice to the trap) on the efficiency of trapping Ae. albopictus males and females was tested. The experiment was carried out in three distinct areas on La Réunion that have been selected for pilot field testing of the release of sterile male Ae. albopictus mosquitoes. The effect of four types of attractant (including the generic BG-Lure, one mouse or two to three mice) in baited BGS traps was tested with a Latin square design in order to control for the variability of different sampling positions and dates.ResultsAt the three studied sites, the number of Ae. albopictus adults caught and the proportion of males per trap consistently increased with the number of mice present in the trap.ConclusionThe results from this study suggest that some new attractants derived from, or similar to, mouse odors could be developed and tested in combination with other existing attractive components, such as CO2 and heat, in order to provide a reliable estimation method for Ae. albopictus adult male abundance in the wild.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-016-1801-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Trapping male mosquitoes in the field is essential for the development of area-wide vector control programs with a sterile insect technique (SIT) component
The purpose of the present study was to address the hypothesis that the use of mice as baits can enhance the yield of BGS traps and increase sampling efficiency for catching Ae. albopictus males
For Ae. albopictus, the proportions of adults caught during the course of the experiment in different sites were significantly different from the expected proportion for Duparc and the Buffer Zone, but not for Bois Rouge
Summary
Trapping male mosquitoes in the field is essential for the development of area-wide vector control programs with a sterile insect technique (SIT) component. The population density may be estimated by mark-releaserecapture (MRR) experiments [1, 7, 8] This same technique has been used for estimating the size of wild Aedes species populations [9,10,11,12,13], and has been used to determine the quality of the mass reared and sterilized males by estimating their survival and their dispersal ability in the field after release [14,15,16,17]. The ability to conveniently apply this MRR technique for estimating the population size of male Aedes albopictus relies heavily on the availability of efficient male trapping methods and sampling tools
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