The Effects of Diet on Life-Span, Fecundity and Flight Potential of Aedes Taeniorhynchus Adults1

Abstract

Male and female Aedes taeniorhynchus were fed on different diets and maintained in small boxes for the recording of survival and egg laying, and in acoustic boxes for the recording of spontaneous flight. Males and females can survive for 2–3 months on a 10% sucrose solution without any need for protein. Females can live on a 10% sucrose solution as long as on a blood and sucrose combination diet, suggesting that sucrose satisfied all the necessary metabolic requirements for survival and flight. However, blood is required for egg production while only satisfying limited metabolic requirements for prolonged survival. Sucrose supplementing blood in autogenous females increased egg production only by 26%, but increased the mean survival time more than 3 times that of females on blood alone. Spontaneous flight activity reveals a circadian bimodal alternans pattern in both males and females on all diets. Males fed sucrose show extensive variability from day to day in their sustained flight at light-off and light-on, suggesting cyclic swarming behavior. Females fed sucrose alone show consistent sustained flights for 40 min. at light-off and 20 min. at light-on continuously for more than 4 weeks. Females fed on blood and sucrose show diminished flight after 2 weeks, whereas in females on blood alone flight was limited to about 10 days. Starved females when fed blood to repletion did not show flight activity until 8 hr after feeding. The patterns revealed by females fed on blood and sucrose and maintained in acoustic boxes help explain the pattern observed in nature, where females of any one brood were never caught after 3 weeks.