The impact of uniform and mixed species blood meals on the fitness of the mosquito vector Anopheles gambiae s.s: does a specialist pay for diversifying its host species diet?

摘要: We investigated the fitness consequences of specialization in an organism whose host choice has immense impact on human health: African malaria vector Anopheles gambiae s.s. tested whether this mosquito’s specialism humans can be attributed to relative benefits specialist vs. generalist feeding strategies by contrasting their fecundity and survival human-only mixed diets consisting blood meals from animals. When given only one meal, An. gambiae survived significantly longer bovine blood, than canine or avian blood. However, when fed repeatedly, there was no evidence that a diet greater those diets. This suggests adoption is not constrained intraspecific variation resource quality other available species.