Kolkata: Scientists at the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) successfully developed a technology on surveillance of mosquitoes by utilising the acoustic biology of the species. This has an advantage over traditional methods and may help in the identification of mosquito species in the future.
“The present study based on sound-based technology is simple, precise and cost-effective and provides better resolution for species, sex and fed-unfed status detection in comparison to conventional methods. Real-time surveillance of mosquito technology could potentially be the future for mosquito control personnel and the people,” said Devi Shankar Suman, Estuarine Biology Regional Centre, ZSI, Gopalpur, Ganjam, Odisha.
The scientists looked at different sound features like frequency, harmonics and amplitude to figure out the 19 species of mosquitoes from the genera — Aedes, Anopheles, Armigeres, Culex, Hulecoetomyia and Mansonia. Many of them are important vectors and transmitting vector-borne diseases such as malaria, filarial, dengue, chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis and Zika virus.
According to scientists, despite several control strategies, mosquito-borne diseases cause millions of global deaths annually. The situation can be improved with proactive management using effective surveillance. Mosquito surveillance for vector-borne disease management relies on traditional morphological and molecular techniques which are tedious, time-consuming and costly. Mosquito identification based on morphology is the most reliable method. However, it requires careful collection, storage and mounting of specimens because of the fragile body parts, color patterns and scales. Molecular identification is another method to confirm species using different gene sequences. Both morphological and molecular techniques require high-end laboratory set-up and trained personnel which may cause delays in the results of field explorations.
It was found that the acoustic signatures of mosquitoes are specific for communicating within their species to perform various biological functions such as finding the mates for progeny production. Mosquitoes evolved highly developed Johnston’s organ (JO) to communicate with each other using species-specific aural cues. In response to acoustic signals, mosquitoes emit a buzzing sound with a specific frequency of vibrating wings. We have utilised these sound features in our research to generate profiles for species, sex identification etc. The study has been published in the famed Elsevier journal, Acta Tropica, along with collaborators Vivek Dixit, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Bengal, and Udita Mandal, Maanas Suman and Joydeep Dutta from Lovely Professional University, Punjab.