A novel mosquito feeding system for routine blood-feeding of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus

摘要

A novel mosquito feeding system for routine blood-feeding of Aedes aegyptiand Aedes albopictus was developed and evaluated. The system consisted of a collagenmembrane casing filled with specific pathogen free (SPF) mini-pig blood, which is warmedby a simple in-house designed heating device. Blood feeding rate, fecundity, survivalrate and hatchability of Ae. aegypti and Ae. albopictus colonies maintained by the feedingsystem were compared with those raised by conventional guinea pig feeding method.Aedes aegypti, displayed a significant difference in the feeding rate when offered bloodmeal using the membrane feeding (85.3%) and the guinea pig feeding (96.2%) methods(P=0.012). Though the feeding rate was reduced, the level was acceptable formaintenance of laboratory colonies. There was no significant difference in the fecundity(P=0.556), survival rate (P=0.715), and hatchability (P=0.932) between the two methods.For Ae. albopictus, the two feeding methods yielded no significant difference for thethree parameters (fecundity, survival rate and hatchability=0.887, 0.580 and 0.564,respectively). Hence, we conclude that this simple collagen based membrane bloodfeeding system can be used for routine colonization of laboratory strains of Ae. aegyptiand Ae. albopictus.