Student Poster Display
Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology
Student
Lyn Wang
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
Evan S. Smith
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
Arturo Ledezma
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
Pranav Jayakumar
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
Oluwaseun Matthew Ajayi (he/him/his)
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
Joshua Benoit
Professor
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
Mosquitoes are a prominent and deadly disease vector. They are known to carry pathogens that cause disease such as malaria, dengue, West Nile fever, Zika virus disease, and yellow fever. Previous studies have shown that the circadian cycle and sleep of mosquitoes is important for host landing and blood feeding, and therefore, reproduction and disease transmission. Many factors can impact a mosquito’s sleep cycle, including predation, light pollution and environmental pollution. Recently, caffeine, a pharmaceutically active compound (PhAC), has been shown to be a persistent pollutant in several water bodies that could be used as a water source. In this study, we allow female mosquitoes of two species, Aedes aegypti (diurnal) and Culex pipiens (nocturnal), to ingest varying caffeine concentrations (0.001%, 0.01%, 0.1%, 0.5%) and then measured activity and sleep levels. Caffeine exposure does not significantly impact general activity and sleep profiles of A, aegypti (day active and more sleep at night). However, mosquitoes exposed to caffeine, especially at the highest concentration, had increased activity levels and reduced sleep amounts relative to the control counterparts. Lastly, mosquitoes exposed to a single concentration, 0.01%, showed no clear difference in blood feeding when compared to the control. The results suggest that caffeine has an impact on sleep/activity profiles and could have an impact on disease transmission; further research should investigate the effects of other environmental pollutants.