This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Scents govern most key events in the lives of mosquitoes, and there is extensive research on their sense of smell. A new study reveals how a young female mosquito shifts from focusing entirely on nectar to seeking only blood.
An odor receptor that reacts to camphor was found to play a key role. Rickard Ignell, professor of chemical ecology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, studies odor-driven behaviors of mosquitoes that spread serious diseases, including the dengue mosquito (Aedes aegypti). In several high-profile studies, he has identified the scents that help blood-seeking females locate their victims.
Now, his research team, together with colleagues in Ethiopia and the U.S., has investigated a stage in the female mosquito's life about which we have known considerably less—the transition from being entirely focused on nectar to seeking only blood. The research is published in the journal Current Biology. For newly hatched and a few-day-old female mosquitoes, nectar-seeking behavior is extremely important.
They need to build up energy reserves to increase their survival, flight capacity and dispersal ability. During sexual maturation, they develop the ability to consume a blood meal, a process accelerated after mating and linked to a shift toward being attracted to humans. "Female mosquitoes are equipped with a large number of odor receptors, particularly on their antennae.
The receptors function as a kind of 'lock and key' mechanism, whereby a single receptor can only be 'activated' by certain odors. What we have shown is that a change occurs in a single receptor that completely 'reconfigures' the female's foraging behavior," Ignell says. The olfactory receptor in question (Or117) was found to be sensitive to camphor and similar substances found in the scent of flowers that these mosquitoes are particularly attracted to.
Camphor has a distinctive scent and is found, for example, in Tiger Balm. This receptor proved to be essential for nectar-seeking behavior in young, unmated females. As they grow older and after mating, the females cease to be attracted by floral odors, while their sensitivity to camphor also diminishes.
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