ArticleJournal of chemical ecology2015
Waiting with bated breath: opportunistic orientation to human odor in the malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae, is modulated by minute changes in carbon dioxide concentration.
Article in Journal of chemical ecology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evolutionary drivers of sex-specific parasite prevalence in wild birds.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Pooled it
- Review
- The effect of eave and window modifications on house entry behavior of Anopheles gambiae.Parasites & vectors · 2025Article
- Anopheles mosquito exposure is associated with age, gender and bed net use in areas in Uganda experiencing varying malaria transmission intensity.The Journal of infection · 2025Article
- À la carte: how mosquitoes choose their blood meals.Trends in parasitology · 2024Review
- Experimental hut and field evaluation of a metofluthrin-based spatial repellent against pyrethroid-resistant Anopheles funestus in Siaya County, western Kenya.Parasites & vectors · 2024Article
- Innovative house structures for malaria vector control in Nampula district, Mozambique: assessing mosquito entry prevention, indoor comfort, and community acceptance.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Knockout of OR39 reveals redundancy in the olfactory pathway regulating the acquisition of host seeking inProceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Compounds from human odor induce attraction and landing in female yellow fever mosquitoes (Aedes aegypti).Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Human attractive cues and mosquito host-seeking behavior.Trends in parasitology · 2022Review
- Primacy of Human Odors Over Visual and Heat Cues in Inducing Landing in FemaleJournal of insect behavior · 2022Article
- Semi-field evaluation of novel chemical lures for Aedes aegypti, Culex quinquefasciatus, and Anopheles minimus (Diptera: Culicidae) in Thailand.Parasites & vectors · 2021Article
- Effects of indoor air movement and ambient temperature on mosquito (Anopheles gambiae) behaviour around bed nets: implications for malaria prevention initiatives.Malaria journal · 2021Article
- Mosquito Attractants.Journal of chemical ecology · 2021Review
- Dose-Response Assay for Synthetic Mosquito (Diptera: Culicidae) Attractant Using a High-Throughput Screening System.Insects · 2021Article
- Multimodal synergisms in host stimuli drive landing response in malaria mosquitoes.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Mosquito Host Seeking in 3D Using a Versatile Climate-Controlled Wind Tunnel System.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2021Article
- Navigation in darkness: How the marine midge (Pontomyia oceana) locates hard substrates above the water level to lay eggs.PloS one · 2021Article
- Olfaction in Anopheles mosquitoes.Chemical senses · 2021Review
- Multimodal floral cues guide mosquitoes to tansy inflorescences.Scientific reports · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Females of the malaria mosquito, Anopheles gambiae, predominantly obtain blood meals within human dwellings. Being highly anthropophilic, human skin odor offers a reliable, host-specific cue, but the challenge posed by pervasive human odor found indoors from used clothing, bedding etc. remains unclear. Anopheles gambiae spends much of its adult life indoors, constantly exposed to human odor even when dwellings are unoccupied. In landing assays, we found that female mosquitoes respond very weakly to human skin odor alone, suggesting that, alone, it is an ineffective landing cue. Landing, however, was dramatically increased by addition of carbon dioxide at a range of concentrations above ambient. Indeed, this effect was seen even when carbon dioxide was just 0.015% above ambient within the assay cage. The synergistic effect of added carbon dioxide quickly waned, thereby facilitating a highly adaptive "sit-and-wait" ambush strategy, wherein females ignore persistent human odor until a living human is present. Unexpectedly, landing rates in the presence of added carbon dioxide were almost as robust during daytime, when An. gambiae has previously been assumed inactive, possibly facilitating opportunistic feeding at times of day when human dwellings are occupied intermittently. We suggest earlier studies that showed strong upwind flight behavior toward human odor alone could, in fact, have been demonstrating orientation toward a human dwelling rather than toward a living human. This new interpretation of how human odors mediate upwind orientation and landing in An. gambiae is discussed.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.