New international research finds that mosquitoes can actually avoid pesticides

　　China News Service, Beijing, February 18 (Reporter Sun Zifa) Springer Nature's open-access academic journal "Scientific Reports" recently published a biological paper saying that the study found that female mosquitoes can Learn to avoid pesticides, which may affect their effectiveness against mosquitoes.

　　The paper notes that pesticides are used to curb the spread of mosquito-borne diseases.

Mosquitoes' resistance to insecticides has grown unabated in recent decades, but it was previously unclear to what extent this was due to mosquito behavior.

　　Corresponding author of the paper, Frederic Tripet of Keele University, UK, and colleagues exposed female Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus to insecticides commonly used for mosquito control. Spreads dengue, Zika, West Nile fever, and pesticides including malathion, propoxur, deltamethrin, permethrin, and beta-cyhalothrin.

They then investigated whether re-exposure to the same insecticide prevented mosquitoes from feeding and resting, and to assess whether this affected mosquito survival.

　　The research team found that a higher percentage of pre-exposed mosquitoes did not pass through an insecticide-treated net to obtain food than mosquitoes that were not pre-exposed to a certain insecticide.

Only 15.4% of pre-exposed Aedes aegypti and 12.1% of pre-exposed Culex quinquefasciatus crossed the net for feeding, compared with 57.7% and 54.4% of no pre-exposed mosquitoes, respectively.

Pre-exposed mosquitoes were also more than twice as likely to survive as non-pre-exposed mosquitoes.

38.3% of pre-exposed Aedes aegypti and 32.1% of pre-exposed C. The treated net survived.

　　The research team also found that pre-exposed mosquitoes were more likely than non-pre-exposed mosquitoes to rest in a container scented with a control substance, but not in a container scented with an insecticide.

75.7% of pre-exposed Aedes aegypti and 83.1% of pre-exposed Culex quinquefasciatus rested in containers without insecticide, compared with 50.2% and 50.4% of non-pre-exposed mosquitoes, respectively.

　　The authors conclude that their findings show that mosquitoes exposed to non-lethal doses of pesticides learn to avoid them and may therefore seek out safer food sources and resting spots to give themselves a chance to thrive go down.

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