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Review
. 2023 Feb 27;15(3):636.
doi: 10.3390/v15030636.

Biology and Behaviour of Aedes aegypti in the Human Environment: Opportunities for Vector Control of Arbovirus Transmission

Luca Facchinelli  1 , Athanase Badolo  2 , Philip J McCall  1
Affiliations
Review

Biology and Behaviour of Aedes aegypti in the Human Environment: Opportunities for Vector Control of Arbovirus Transmission

Luca Facchinelli et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Aedes aegypti is a ubiquitous vector of arboviruses mostly in urbanised areas throughout the tropics and subtropics and a growing threat beyond. Control of Ae. aegypti is difficult and costly, and no vaccines are available for most of the viruses it transmits. With practical control solutions our goal, ideally suitable for delivery by householders in affected communities, we reviewed the literature on adult Ae. aegypti biology and behaviour, within and close to the human home, the arena where such interventions must impact. We found that knowledge was vague or important details were missing for multiple events or activities in the mosquito life cycle, such as the duration or location of the many periods when females rest between blood feeding and oviposition. The existing body of literature, though substantial, is not wholly reliable, and evidence for commonly held "facts" range from untraceable to extensive. Source references of some basic information are poor or date back more than 60 years, while other information that today is accepted widely as "fact" is not supported by evidence in the literature. Many topics, e.g., sugar feeding, resting preferences (location and duration), and blood feeding, merit being revisited in new geographical regions and ecological contexts to identify vulnerabilities for exploitation in control.

Keywords: Aedes aegypti; arboviruses; domestic and peridomestic behaviour; endophily; exophagy; indoor residual spraying; insecticide; targeting; vector control.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Vector preferences for host-seeking and resting behaviour influence vector control interventions as does the community’s response to them. (A) Standard IRS involves the application of aqueous insecticide residues on indoor walls and ceiling and is most effective for vector control where endophily is the predominant behaviour; in a busy room such as this, where are the preferential resting sites? What could guide us in efforts to identify the spots preferred by Ae. aegypti, e.g., surface colour or texture, light intensity, flight paths, degree of cover, etc. to reliably identify them as target sites? (B) Where is, or what would be defined as indoor or outdoor in this dwelling in Recife, Brazil? (C) Ouagadougou Burkina Faso. Here, in a relatively arid region, the Ae. aegypti population is highly exophilic, but with a disproportionately high number of bloodfed females caught inside houses (see Badolo et al. 2022). This is in contrast to (D) Chon Buri in Thailand, where despite the high humidity, most biting occurs while humans are indoors. However, it is very hot indoors and people prefer to spend leisure time outdoors, negating the impact of the insecticide-treated curtains (visible in the doorway and windows behind), which form a barrier to house entry but contribute little to vector control as a result. (Figure 1A © Chris Barrett; Figure 1B–D © PJ McCall).
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