Evaluations of Attractants, Lights and Fans for Indoor Mosquito Traps against Culex pipiens (Diptera: Culicidae)

Abstract

The study evaluated the efficacy of indoor LED light traps (LED‐Trap) to develop with two different LED light frequencies, three attractants, two fan speeds, and three different types of mosquito traps under laboratory conditions on collection of Culex pipiens females. The attractants tested were various concentrations of lactic acid, ammonia solution and ammonium hydrogen carbonate. Four repetitions of the study were performed in each 20 or 50 Cx. pipiens in an 1.8 m x 3.7 m x 1.8 m screened enclosure. Collection rates of Cx. pipiens were not significantly different in the traps between 380 nm (mean 76.5% of a collection rate) and 400 nm (mean 96.0%) of wavelengths from the LED light traps for 14 hour operations. Without lights, the rates were not significantly different among the three different traps such as Nozawa (mean 70.7% of a collection rate), Black‐hole (mean 80.0%) and the LED‐Trap of fan speed 2,600 rpm (mean 74.7%) but they were all significantly higher than that of the LED‐Trap of a fan speed 1,350 rpm (mean 29.3%) for 14 hours. Three different concentrations of lactic acid baits in the M‐traps were not significantly different collection rates among 500, 1,000, 10,000 ppm with average collection rates of 80.0%, 93.0%, and 81.5% after 14 hour operations, respectively. Culex pipiens were not more significantly captured in the LED‐traps using five concentrations of ammonia solutions from 100 ppm to 20,000 ppm compared with those of control traps. However, the traps with ammonium hydrogen carbonate collected more mosquitoes of the averages of 26.3%, 22.5%, 43.8% at 1,000, 10,000, 20,000 ppm than control traps (fan only), respectively. Further work is needed to investigate the bait chemicals.