Mosquito

Aftermath of tropical storm Hilary brings conditions for mosquito breeding

tomwt — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 15:04:24 +0000

Aftermath of tropical storm Hilary brings conditions for mosquito breeding tomwt Mon, 08/28/2023 - 08:04 More CNAS in the Media Brian White | CBS News 8 San Diego August 24, 2023

CBS 8 NEWS - Heavy rains from tropical storm Hilary left plenty of flooding and standing water, and when combined with the sunny, warm weather, can make for prime mosquito-breeding conditions.

“These mosquitoes breed in water sources that are oftentimes in backyards that can be relatively small water sources, so any pot or cup or container that might hold water temporarily in a backyard, for example, could be a breeding source,” said Dr. Alec Gerry, Professor of Entomology at UC Riverside.

Yellow fever mosquitoes new to our area, sometimes nicknamed “ankle biters,” seem to prefer biting humans over most other mammals.

“These mosquitoes tend to bite kind of low, so if you’re getting bitten by mosquitoes that are biting on the lower legs or around the ankles, especially if they look tiny or you don’t see them, these are probably Aedes aegypti mosquitoes,” said Dr. Gerry.

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Worst mosquito infestation in years could soon hit Inland Empire

tomwt — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 14:40:33 +0000

Worst mosquito infestation in years could soon hit Inland Empire tomwt Mon, 04/24/2023 - 07:40 More CNAS in the Media David Downey | The Press-Enterprise April 23, 2023

THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE - Heavy rain has transformed normally dry fields and numerous backyards across the Inland Empire into soggy breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

As a result, bug experts are bracing for what could be one of the region’s worst mosquito seasons in recent memory.

When mosquitoes do emerge in a big way, their disruption to human activities will be aggravated by a recent trend, said Anandasankar Ray, a professor of molecular, cell and systems biology at UC Riverside.

It used to be that residents had to deal only with native Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes, which predictably bite early in the morning and in the evening, Ray said.

“In the past, if you were careful during dusk or dawn you were OK,” Ray said. “Now you have to start worrying about the daytime, too.”

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Bugs Bugging You? Coyotes Got You Howling? We've Got Tips On Warding Off Nature's Peskiest Critters

tomwt — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 16:47:08 +0000

Bugs Bugging You? Coyotes Got You Howling? We've Got Tips On Warding Off Nature's Peskiest Critters tomwt Thu, 02/23/2023 - 08:47 More CNAS in the Media Ryanne Mena | LAist.com February 17, 2023

LAIST.COM - Springtime is about a month away, and summer will be here before we know it. In Los Angeles, both seasons invite people to enjoy the great outdoors and bask in the sun. Summertime brings those warm summer nights.

Which bring bugs, and all kinds of other critters and wildlife. In the spring, you might see more coyotes — mating season means they’ll be hunting more. Owners of cats and tiny dogs beware! Urban coyotes are pros at surviving, especially when they have more mouths to feed.

Warmer months mean mosquito season, and yet again trying to find ways to prevent getting those itchy bug bites.

There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes, but only about 20 bite humans, according to Anandasankar Ray, a molecular cell and systems biology professor at the University of California at Riverside.

Another fun fact: only female mosquitoes bite.

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Scent of a Human: What Draws Mosquitoes to People's Skin

tomwt — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 16:03:12 +0000

Scent of a Human: What Draws Mosquitoes to People's Skin tomwt Tue, 09/27/2022 - 09:03 More CNAS in the Media Cara Murez | HealthDay Reporter September 26, 2022

U.S. NEWS - "Though others have identified compounds that attract mosquitoes, many of them don't elicit a strong, rapid effect. This one does," said study co-author Ring Cardé, a professor of entomology at the University of California, Riverside.

Skin odors appear to be the most important for mosquitoes when locating someone to bite, but other cues include sight, temperature and humidity.

"We demonstrated that mosquitoes land on visually indistinct targets imbued with these two odors, and these targets aren't associated with heat or moisture," Cardé said in a university news release. "That leaves skin odor as the key guiding factor.

"I suspected there was something undiscovered about the chemistry of odors luring the yellow fever mosquito. I wanted to nail down the exact blend," he explained.

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Manipulating mosquito behavior through their odorant receptors

ilseu — Thu, 16 Apr 2020 04:03:39 +0000

Manipulating mosquito behavior through their odorant receptors ilseu Wed, 04/15/2020 - 21:03 More College News IQBAL PITTALWALA | Inside UCR April 15, 2020

UC Riverside researchers have published a paper in Cell Reports that addresses an important question in the field of sensory receptor function, particularly for some odorant receptors that function as “heteromers” — receptors with more than one subunit: How do the different subunits of a receptor contribute to the detection of different ligands?

Ligands are signaling molecules that modulate processes inside cells by binding to receptors. The mosquito CO₂ receptor has three subunits and is widely tuned to a diverse collection of ligands. The receptor is critical because it allows mosquitoes to sense exhaled CO₂ and odorants from skin, facilitating the mosquitoes’ navigation towards a living vertebrate host.

Anandasankar Ray

“Understanding how this receptor functions could lead to a better approach for manipulating mosquito behavior,” said Anandasankar Ray, a professor in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Systems Biology, who led the research team.

The three subunits in the CO₂ receptor in mosquitoes are Gr1, Gr2, and Gr3. The fruit fly, on the other hand, lacks a Gr2 equivalent and instead forms a functional CO₂ receptor with Gr1 and Gr3 orthologs, which are Gr21a and Gr63a, respectively.

Ray’s team used CRISPR technology to create a mutant Gr21a and found that the mutant fly did not detect CO₂. Next, they generated a double mutant by combining with a Gr63s mutant fly. Using powerful genetic methods, the team then systematically expressed combination of the three Aedes mosquito subunits Gr1, Gr2, and Gr3 in this non-responding CO₂ neuron system. The researchers found different combinations of Gr1, Gr2, and Gr3 contribute to the detection of different ligand classes of activators such as CO₂, aliphatic, and aromatic compounds.

“The CO₂ receptor subunits are among the most evolutionarily conserved of all insect chemosensory receptors, and they are activated or inhibited by a range of diverse ligands,” Ray said. “Our new work adds to our knowledge of basic mechanisms of olfactory receptor function and aids in the design of new tools to manipulate host-seeking behavior of mosquitoes and other insects.”

Ray explained that the detection of skin odorants presents another interesting perspective briefly discussed in the research paper.

“The butyric and iso-butyric acid that the CO₂ receptor is inhibited by are found in human skin,” he said. “This finding has not been understood before and could contribute to understanding why mosquitoes are attracted more to some people than others; people may have different levels of these acids on skin.”

The paper, “Contributions of the Conserved Insect Carbon Dioxide Receptor Subunits to Odor Detection,” was co-authored by Arun Kumar, Genevieve M. Tauxe, Sarah Perry, Christi Ann Scott, and Anupama Dahanukar. The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.

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Department of Molecular, Cell and Systems Biology

Mosquito

Anandasankar Ray