Carolyn Velazquez | 2025 I.S. Symposium

Name: Carolyn Velazquez
Title: The Effects of Adult Nutritional Stress on Remating Behavior in Female Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes
Major: Biology
Advisor: Laura Sirot

In mosquitoes, seminal fluid transfer during mating impacts female physiology and behavior, inducing a refractory response to future matings. In female Aedes aegypti, post-mating gene expression changes have been found to be nutrition-dependent, with higher regulation of DEGs (differentially expressed genes) in nutritionally stressed females, indicating they may be more susceptible to mating-induced effects. Given that Aedes aegypti mosquitoes often encounter nutritional stress in their environment, I investigated the impact of nutrition on likelihood of remating likelihood and behaviors, such as latency until male contact and leg kicking, in female Aedes aegypti. My results show nutrition does not have a significant effect on remating or leg kicking but has a significant effect on latency until male contact in 3% sucrose females. These findings show the role of nutrition on remating behavior, which can be applied for understanding the effectiveness of the sterile insect technique and mosquito control strategies.

Posted in Symposium 2025 on May 1, 2025.