Video Recording Can Conveniently Assay Mosquito Locomotor Activity

Abstract

Anopheles gambiae and Aedes aegypti are perhaps the best studied mosquito species and important carriers of human malaria and arbovirus, respectively. Mosquitoes have daily rhythms in behaviors and show a wide range of activity patterns. Although Anopheles is known to be principally nocturnal and Aedes principally diurnal, details of mosquito activity are not easily assayed in the laboratory. We recently described FlyBox, a simple tracking system for assaying Drosophila locomotor activity rhythms and thought that it might also be applicable to monitoring mosquito activity. Indeed, we show here that FlyBox can easily, conveniently, affordably and accurately measure the activity of Anopheles as well as Aedes over several days. The resulting profiles under light-dark as well as constant darkness conditions are compatible with results in the literature, indicating that this or similar systems will be useful in the future for more detailed studies on a range of insect species and under more diverse laboratory conditions.