Alyssa Slicko, a junior from the University of Arkansas Little Rock, worked with Nikki Solano in the lab of Dr. Courtney Murdock to look at sugar-feeding and its relationship to land use in an invasive mosquito.
Abstract: The Asian tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, is a non-native species to North America and is known to be highly invasive with an ability to vector up to 27 different arboviruses. Since female mosquitoes feed on both sugar and blood to survive, understanding the tendencies for sugar feeding could explain the differences in the abundance of invasive mosquito populations. Past studies have shown that temperature plays an important role in the distribution of vector borne diseases, but it has not been discovered whether other environmental factors such as sugar availability is a limiting resource for mosquito populations. Some species have evolutionarily adapted to low sugar resources, meaning they primarily feed on blood. However, little is known about the sugar feeding habits of Aedes albopictus. We collected A. albopictus from nine field sites classified as suburban, urban and rural based on percentage of impervious surface. A backpack aspirator was used to collect mosquitoes that were then frozen and identified by sex and species. A total of 90 female A. albopictus mosquitoes were collected, 30 from each land use type. Using homogenized solution of each individual mosquito, colorimetric sugar assays were performed with serial dilutions to determine relative sugar content per mosquito. The absorbance values of these solution were read through a spectrophotometer. At the 1:4 dilution values, urban sites have the greatest overall amount of sugar followed by rural and suburban land uses. There is evidence that mosquitoes in Aedes albopictus females do sugar-feed and that there are differences between sugar contents across land use types. However, a negative relationship was found between absorbance and concentration values across sites. This could be due to a potential chemical inhibitor formed with highly concentrated mosquito dilutions not allowing complete reading of absorbance values and determination of sugar content.