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The hard tick Ixodes ricinus is one of the most important species of disease vectors worldwide. It transmits a variety of pathogens, including spirochaetes that are the causative agent of Lyme borreliosis (LB) in humans. This study aimed at analysing different aspects of the ecology, molecular evolution, and microbial associations of I. ricinus. A novel scheme for the phylogenetic analysis and genotyping of I. ricinus was established as part of this study. Phylogeographic clustering of I. ricinus samples fromdifferent European countries was observed, while samples from two different sites inSouthwest England did not show spatial differentiation. The ecology and host abundance in these two habitats was assessed. Differences in the density of questing ticks and in the abundance of rodent hosts were observed. Both sites exhibited low densities of rodents and of ticks infesting them. A blood meal analysis revealed high proportions of mixed feedings and showed artiodactyls to be a main host group for immature I. ricinus ticks from Britain. The prevalence rates of Wolbachia endobacteria in British I. ricinus samples were higher than rates found in samples from other European countries. The unique endosymbiont Midichloria was detected in all female I. ricinus ticks that were screened. A newly developed multi gene analysis of Midichloria samples from six European countries showed a largely coordinated phylogeography with their tick hosts. Taken together, the findings of this thesis demonstrate that British I. ricinus ticks differ from their European counterparts in several ways, which has implications for the epidemiology of infectious diseases transmitted by this vector.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Mathematics and Statistics. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-132). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:NR19847

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-03T11:52:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2014-07-28Bitstream added on 2015-03-03T12:06:09Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000810574_20160728.pdf: 555774 bytes, checksum: a1eafb543fd960c6eb728f54e4d8d4fa (MD5) Bitstreams deleted on 2016-07-29T12:53:57Z: 000810574_20160728.pdf,. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2016-07-29T12:54:50Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000810574.pdf: 619509 bytes, checksum: 02da17d2039311135a8a7eb0b12e2091 (MD5) / A dengue, doença infecciosa aguda, causada por um vírus da família Flaviviridae e transmitida aos humanos pela picada dos mosquitos do gênero Aedes, é considerada um dos principais problemas de saúde pública no mundo. O Aedes aegypti é o único vetor conhecido nas Américas e no Brasil está presente nos 26 estados e no distrito federal. A indisponibilidade de uma vacina que imunize a população contra os quatro sorotipos da dengue restringe a prevenção da doença ao controle do vetor. Isto é feito por aplicações de inseticidas químicos, porém o uso frequente em altas doses tem selecionado populações resistentes do mosquito. Diante dessa situação há necessidade de se buscar produtos alternativos que tenham efeito nestas populações. Diversos estudos demonstraram que os óleos essenciais de Syzygium aromaticum e Citrus sinensis apresentam pronunciada atividade larvicida, assim, este trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar o potencial destes produtos como alternativa de controle larvicida para populações de A. aegypti resistentes ao organofosforado temephos e verificar o efeito da associação deste inseticida aos óleos essenciais sobre a atividade larvicida. Avaliou-se também, a influência dos óleos essenciais na oviposição do vetor quando presentes nos sítios de postura. A comparação da atividade larvicida nas populações resistentes e suscetíveis foi realizada por meio das concentrações letais obtidas em ensaios de dose-resposta, seguindo metodologia proposta pela Organização Mundial da Saúde. Para avaliar o efeito da associação dos óleos essenciais ao temephos comparou-se a atividade larvicida das associações com a do temephos e o efeito no comportamento de oviposição foi avaliado pela comparação do número de ovos colocados nos sítios de postura, contendo soluções dos óleos essenciais em relação aos contendo somente água. Os resultados revelaram que os óleos essenciais exerceram atividade ... / Dengue fever an acute infectious disease caused by Flaviviridae family virus, transmitted to humans by the mosquitoes bite of Aedes genus. It is considered one of the most public health problems in the world. The Aedes aegypti is the only known vector in the Americas and in Brazil is present in 26 states and the federal district. The unavailability of a vaccine to immunize people against the four dengue serotypes restricted the disease prevention to the vector control. The control is done by chemical insecticides application, but the frequent use in high doses, have selected resistant mosquito populations. In front of this situation, it is necessary to seek for alternative products that have effect on these populations. Several studies demonstrated that Syzygium aromaticum and Citrus sinensis essential oils have larvicidal activity, so the aim of this study was to evaluate the potential of the essencial oils as an alternative to control A. aegypti larvae resistant to the organophosphate temephos and analyze the effect of this insecticide and essencial oils association on the larvicidal activity. It was evaluated too the influence of essencial oils on vector oviposition, when present on the posture sites. The larvicidal activity was assessed by dose-response tests, according to the methodology proposed by the World Health Organization. To evaluate the effect of essential oils associatiate with temephos, the larvicidal associations activity was compared with the temephos. The effect on oviposition behavior was evaluated comparing the number of eggs in laying sites containing essential oils in relation to the number of eggs in laying sites containing only water. The results demonstrated that essential oils had larvicidal activity in resistant and susceptible to temephos populations, being an alternative to resistance management. The association of temephos and essential oils had an antagonist ...

Orientador: João Tadeu Ribeiro Paes / Banca: Maria de Lourdes da Graça Macoris / Banca: Francisco Anaruma Filho / Resumo: A dengue, doença infecciosa aguda, causada por um vírus da família Flaviviridae e transmitida aos humanos pela picada dos mosquitos do gênero Aedes, é considerada um dos principais problemas de saúde pública no mundo. O Aedes aegypti é o único vetor conhecido nas Américas e no Brasil está presente nos 26 estados e no distrito federal. A indisponibilidade de uma vacina que imunize a população contra os quatro sorotipos da dengue restringe a prevenção da doença ao controle do vetor. Isto é feito por aplicações de inseticidas químicos, porém o uso frequente em altas doses tem selecionado populações resistentes do mosquito. Diante dessa situação há necessidade de se buscar produtos alternativos que tenham efeito nestas populações. Diversos estudos demonstraram que os óleos essenciais de Syzygium aromaticum e Citrus sinensis apresentam pronunciada atividade larvicida, assim, este trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar o potencial destes produtos como alternativa de controle larvicida para populações de A. aegypti resistentes ao organofosforado temephos e verificar o efeito da associação deste inseticida aos óleos essenciais sobre a atividade larvicida. Avaliou-se também, a influência dos óleos essenciais na oviposição do vetor quando presentes nos sítios de postura. A comparação da atividade larvicida nas populações resistentes e suscetíveis foi realizada por meio das concentrações letais obtidas em ensaios de dose-resposta, seguindo metodologia proposta pela Organização Mundial da Saúde. Para avaliar o efeito da associação dos óleos essenciais ao temephos comparou-se a atividade larvicida das associações com a do temephos e o efeito no comportamento de oviposição foi avaliado pela comparação do número de ovos colocados nos sítios de postura, contendo soluções dos óleos essenciais em relação aos contendo somente água. Os resultados revelaram que os óleos essenciais exerceram atividade ... / Abstract: Dengue fever an acute infectious disease caused by Flaviviridae family virus, transmitted to humans by the mosquitoes bite of Aedes genus. It is considered one of the most public health problems in the world. The Aedes aegypti is the only known vector in the Americas and in Brazil is present in 26 states and the federal district. The unavailability of a vaccine to immunize people against the four dengue serotypes restricted the disease prevention to the vector control. The control is done by chemical insecticides application, but the frequent use in high doses, have selected resistant mosquito populations. In front of this situation, it is necessary to seek for alternative products that have effect on these populations. Several studies demonstrated that Syzygium aromaticum and Citrus sinensis essential oils have larvicidal activity, so the aim of this study was to evaluate the potential of the essencial oils as an alternative to control A. aegypti larvae resistant to the organophosphate temephos and analyze the effect of this insecticide and essencial oils association on the larvicidal activity. It was evaluated too the influence of essencial oils on vector oviposition, when present on the posture sites. The larvicidal activity was assessed by dose-response tests, according to the methodology proposed by the World Health Organization. To evaluate the effect of essential oils associatiate with temephos, the larvicidal associations activity was compared with the temephos. The effect on oviposition behavior was evaluated comparing the number of eggs in laying sites containing essential oils in relation to the number of eggs in laying sites containing only water. The results demonstrated that essential oils had larvicidal activity in resistant and susceptible to temephos populations, being an alternative to resistance management. The association of temephos and essential oils had an antagonist ... / Mestre

Within this thesis, I performed a systematic review of approaches to broad-scale modelling of disease vector distributions and determined the most widely used methods predict current species niches and project the models forward under future climate scenarios without temporal validation. I then provided a forward-looking summary of emerging techniques to improve the reliability and transferability of those models, including historical calibration. I then predicted Anopheles mosquito distributions across Tanzania in 2001 (before large-scale ITN distributions) and compared this model with countrywide ITN use by 2012 to assess where the most suitable mosquito habitats were located and whether ITN rollouts in Tanzania ensured coverage of such areas. I concluded that ITNs in Tanzania did not optimally target areas most at risk of malaria. In doing so, I provided a new approach to monitoring and evaluating vector control interventions across large spatial scales.

Virtually all organisms exhibit circadian rhythms, this includes mosquitoes. Many aspects of their biology are under the control of their circadian clocks like their vision, olfaction, host-seeking, mating, oviposition, metabolism, locomotion, and more. However, how the circadian clock regulates mosquito-host interactions and adapts to specific environmental conditions remains largely unknown, despite its importance to vector disease control. Here, we relied on a multidisciplinary, integrative, and comparative approach to shed light on the mechanisms underlying mosquitoes adaptations to various temporal niches. We use CRISPR/Cas9 to knockout timeless in Aedes aegypti and show this mutation causes an increase in their free running periods under continuous darkness conditions. External factors can also influence a vector's activity pattern like climate, light pollution, as well as host preference and availability. To investigate the influence these factors have on activity patterns, we compare the activity patterns of multiple lab rear strains of Aedes albopictus as well as two field collected populations of Aedes japonicus. Our results suggest host availability and light pollution could cause the differences in activity profiles that we observed. With vision playing an important role in both circadian rhythms, host seeking, and threat detection, we compared a nocturnal mosquito (Aedes japonicus) and a diurnal mosquito (Aedes aegypti). We introduced a looming visual stimulus in an LED arena and found Aedes aegypti to be more responsive to the looming stimulus than Aedes japonicus. Finally, the underlying mechanisms that mediate this threat detection and escape behavior were examined, revealing a possible candidate for a giant fiber neuron in Aedes aegypti. Overall these results provide novel insights into mosquito biology that have the potential to be applied towards vector control methods. / Doctor of Philosophy / Most living things, including mosquitoes, follow a daily pattern called a circadian rhythm. This rhythm affects many parts of their lives including their vision, smell, and activity. Understanding how their circadian clock functions can help us control populations of mosquitoes and prevent the transmission of diseases they may carry. By studying different species and populations of mosquitoes in the lab and from the wild, we have found that factors like light pollution and host availability could affect when mosquitoes are active. In addition to these results we have also demonstrated that mosquitoes that are active during the day and mosquitoes that are active during the night will respond differently to a looming visual stimulus. We examined the brain of the mosquitoes that were most responsive to the looming stimulus and found a system of large neurons that could potentially be responsible for eliciting their escape behaviors. Overall these results provide new and important information about mosquito biology and can be applied to mosquito control.

Mosquitoes are a significant global public health threat, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives annually due to the various pathogens they transmit, which result in diseases including dengue, malaria, and Zika. While various strategies and practices are in place to manage mosquito populations, these methods may be challenged due to a rise in insecticide resistance in some mosquito species, the increasing impacts of global climate change, and invasive species populations. This work presents four distinct projects investigating Culex spp., Ae. albopictus, and Ae. j. japonicus mosquitoes using a range of methods and techniques to bring novel insight into the biology and ecology of these mosquitoes. The first project focuses on the thermal preference and response to thermal cues of three Culex species which vary in host preference and climate of origin. The second project explores the effects of different rearing temperatures and regions of origin on the thermal performance, life-history traits, and nutrient reserves of Ae. albopictus mosquitoes. The third project shifts to the optimization of a species-specific attractive toxic sugar bait (ATSB) trap targeted toward invasive Ae. j. japonicus mosquitoes. The fourth chapter, which is field oriented, focuses on determining the role of elevation on mosquito biodiversity and pathogen prevalence. Collectively, these works explore how mosquitoes interact with their environment to support research-informed decisions in future mosquito control practices. / Master of Science in Life Sciences / Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals in the world, causing over half a million deaths every year. Mosquitoes are disease vectors, meaning they are able to transmit pathogens (such as viruses or bacteria) that cause diseases including malaria and Zika, which can lead to severe illness and death because of the lack of treatment and vaccines, or even access to these in some instances. While there are current strategies in place to reduce mosquito population numbers in areas with high levels of pathogen transmission, we are seeing increasing difficulties in managing and predicting these mosquito populations. Certain mosquito species have become resistant to chemical treatments and the growing impacts of climate change (such as more extreme weather and temperatures) are two factors that are expected to greatly influence mosquito biology and global distribution in the near future, which may expose new human populations to mosquito-borne illnesses. These issues have inspired the following projects to gain more information on how mosquitoes interact with their environment and their hosts, to highlight traits or behaviors that could inform novel mosquito management strategies in the future.

Blood-feeding mosquitoes, by transmitting parasites and viruses to their hosts, kill several hundred thousand people every year. Mosquito populations are currently developing raising levels of insecticide resistance, and there is a need for a better understanding of their behavior so that new control solutions can be imagined, and existing ones can be improved. There has been a vast number of studies examining the host seeking behavior of mosquitoes, however there is a lack of knowledge concerning how mosquitoes are evading the threats their hosts pose via their defensive behaviors. Female mosquitoes are indeed in this unique position where their fitness and reproduction depend on them being able to locate hosts as well as evade them. In order to do this, they rely on sensory cues that they must be able to continuously re-evaluate during host tracking to potentially decide to quickly escape at any point during these interactions. Host seeking is mediated by multiple sensory modalities such as vision, olfaction, and thermosensation. However, it is not clear whether mosquitoes may also be using some of these same cues to identify that their host is turning into a threat. Focusing solely on visual cues in the context of escape behavior, we used a looming stimulus to elicit escape responses from the Yellow Fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti. A virtual reality environment was adapted from previous work, to display the looming stimulus while the mosquito is in a variety of conditions (i.e., landed, in free or tethered flight). Results from these experiments allowed us to characterize the escape responses of mosquitoes, by determining the angles and distances to the stimuli that will most likely trigger an avoidance response. / Master of Science in Life Sciences / Mosquitoes are the deadliest animals in the world because of the several diseases they can transmit. Females are the only ones that bite, since they require a blood meal in order to produce offspring. The task of obtaining this blood meal from a mobile, and defensive host can be extremely dangerous. The females must find a host, approach it, land, feed, and flee without being killed so they can reproduce. At any point, the host might detect the mosquito and try to kill it, typically by swatting at it. For this reason, mosquitoes have evolved the ability to navigate in close proximity to the host, while assessing their level of defensiveness and avoiding these threats. Insects, in general, are well known to display escape behaviors in response to visual, predator-like, looming stimuli. However, in spite of great epidemiological importance, very little is known about the mechanisms that allow mosquitoes to evade their predators, as well as swatting from their hosts. Mosquitoes use visual, olfactory, and thermal cues to track their hosts but what kinds of sensory cues are being used to avoid threats? As a first step towards bridging this knowledge gap, we analyzed the behavioral responses of the Yellow Fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, to looming visual stimuli. For this, we used a virtual-reality environment designed for mosquitoes, where we displayed looming squares to mosquitoes in a variety of conditions (for example: landed, in flight). Results from these experiments allowed us to characterize the escape responses of mosquitoes, by determining the angles and distances to the stimuli that will most likely trigger an avoidance response. Ultimately, better understanding mosquito vision in the context of their escape behavior, can help us improve the design of control tools, such as traps, to increase their efficiency.