The readily transformable Impatiens walleriana efficiently attracts nectar feeding with Aedes and Culex mosquitoes in simulated outdoor garden settings in Mississippi and Florida

Abstract

Mosquitoes rely upon plant nectars for their energy needs, a trait that has the potential to allow nectar to serve as a platform for producing and delivering toxins to nuisance and/or vector mosquito species. Impatiens walleriana (Order: Ericales, Family: Balsaminaceae) is a readily transformable and widely planted nectar plant that has been previously shown to attract mosquito nectar-feeding. However, those feeding studies were only conducted indoors and did not test if variable environmental conditions will affect nectar feeding. In this study, we tested incidence of nectar feeding from the extrafloral nectaries of I. walleriana with the mosquitoes Aedes aegypti, Ae. albopictus and Culex quinquefasciatus (Order: Diptera, Family: Culicidae) in simulated, outdoor garden settings in Mississippi and Florida. I. walleriana and other common garden plants (in a 1:4 ratio) were placed into a mesh-lined 4’x7’ mesocosm along with 50 mosquitoes. To track nectar feeding, the nectar of I. walleriana was tagged with red dye and mosquitoes were analyzed for red dye fluorescence after feeding. Fluorescence analysis demonstrated that 81.9% of male and 86.6% of female mosquitoes fed on the nectar of I. walleriana within 24 h. This suggests that mosquitoes may readily feed on impatiens nectar in outdoor garden settings at temperate and semi-tropical sites, even when alternate common garden plants are available. This attraction capacity is essential for the further consideration of I. walleriana for development as a transgenic, mosquitocidal nectar plant.