The Effects of Boric Acid Sugar Bait on Wolbachia Trans-Infected Male Aedes albopictus (ZAP Males®) in Laboratory Conditions.

Vindhya S Aryaprema,Karen L Dobson,Stephen L Dobson,Whitney A Qualls,Rui-De Xue

doi:10.3390/insects13010001

Vindhya S Aryaprema, Karen L Dobson + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/insects13010001

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Abstract

Simple SummaryThe release of Wolbachia trans-infected mosquitoes to the environment has demonstrated promising results in reducing the target mosquito populations. The use of boric acid toxic sugar bait is another successful and upcoming technique in mosquito control. However, the potential complementary use of the two techniques had not been evaluated. This study demonstrates the significant mortality impact of boric acid toxic sugar bait on Wolbachia trans-infected Aedes albopictus Skuse mosquitoes, thus giving important insight to program planners.The field release of Wolbachia trans-infected male mosquitoes, as well as the use of toxic sugar baits, is a novel and promising candidate technique for integrated mosquito management programs. However, the methods of action of the two techniques may not be complementary, because the Wolbachia method releases mosquitoes into the environment expecting a wild population reduction in subsequent generations while the toxic baits are intended to reduce the wild population by killing mosquitoes. This laboratory study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of boric acid toxic sugar baits on Wolbachia trans-infected male Aedes albopictus, relative to wild-type Ae. albopictus males. Wolbachia trans-infected (ZAP male®) and the wild-type Ae. albopictus males were exposed separately to 1% boric acid in a 10% sucrose solution in BugDorms. In the control test, the two groups were exposed to 10% sucrose solution without boric acid. Percent mortalities were counted for 24 h, 48 h and 72 h post exposure periods. The results show that 1% boric acid toxic sugar bait can effectively kill ZAP males under laboratory conditions, and the effectiveness was significantly higher after 24 h and 48 h, compared to wild-type male Ae. albopictus. This finding will help in planning and coordinating integrated mosquito management programs, including both Wolbachia trans-infected mosquito releases and the use of toxic sugar baits against Ae. albopictus.

Highlights

The application of synthetic insecticides has been the gold standard for mosquito control
Treatment mortalities of both wild-type Ae. albopictus males (Wild) and ZAP groups were significantly higher at all three post-exposure periods compared to the corresponding control mortalities (Table 1)
The control cumulative mortalities of the ZAP group were significantly increased with the increasing post-exposure period, whereas the treatment cumulative mortality was significantly higher at 48 h exposure periods than 24 h but not between

Summary

Introduction

The application of synthetic insecticides has been the gold standard for mosquito control. Wolbachia infections cause the embryonic death of mosquitoes through cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) resulting from sperm–egg incompatibility [2] This CI occurs when Wolbachia-infected male mosquitoes mate with female mosquitoes that are not infected or are infected with a different Wolbachia strain [3]. Population replacement is used mainly to control disease transmission, with Wolbachia strains that can interfere with the transmission of pathogens such as the dengue virus [4] Both population suppression and population replacement require releases of large numbers of Wolbachia trans-infected mosquitoes into the target environment [3,6,7]

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