Environmental Impacts on life history in container breeding mosquitoes

Abstract

Resource availability has the potential to impact greatly host life history characteristics and response to parasitism. This effect of resources can arise when the affected host is a vector of the parasite that exploits it. Body condition can alter vector competence (condition-dependent competence), and other phenotypic traits such as blood feeding behavior and fecundity that impact vectorial capacity in multiple vectorparasite systems. Infection with arboviruses can have measurable fitness costs, though costs are not identified in all mosquito-virus interactions. Condition-dependent virulence is observed when usually benign infections become increasingly virulent for the host (or vector) under resource stress. We tested the hypotheses of condition-dependent competence and condition-dependent virulence by manipulating short-term sugar deprivation in Aedes albopictus (Skuse) in La Cross Virus (LACV) exposed and unexposed control females. We predicted that infection status interacts with sugar deprivation to alter willingness to blood feed and fecundity in the second gonotrophic cycle (condition-dependent virulence). Sugar deprivation had no effect on body infection or disseminated infection