Dietary Supplementation With Vitamins and Minerals Improves Larvae and Adult Rearing Conditions of Anopheles darlingi (Diptera: Culicidae)

Abstract

Several experiments with Anopheles darlingi Root, an important malaria vector in the Amazon region, were carried out in the laboratory, depending on the large-scale production of viable larvae and adults. Certainly, improvements in rearing conditions, including dietary requirements, can strongly affect mosquito production. In order to increase the production of this species in the laboratory, we first supplemented the regular larval diet (TetraMin Tropical Flakes) with different concentrations of vitamins and minerals and recorded several biological variables: survival and larval development time, emergence ratio, and adult longevity under a small-scale rearing condition. Second, we established an experimental design under regular lab-rearing conditions based on the concentration of vitamins and minerals that best contributed to the development of these anophelines, and evaluated the biological parameters already mentioned. Moreover, under regular rearing conditions, we recorded sex ratio, adult size, and longevity of adults fed with supplemented sucrose. The lowest concentration of vitamins (V5) and the average concentration of minerals (M3) increased larval survival and decreased larval development time compared with the control. Under regular rearing conditions, minerals provided higher larval survival and increased the longevity of adults fed with supplemented sucrose. Supplementing the regular larval diet and sucrose solutions with vitamins and minerals increased the production of immatures and the longevity of An. darlingi adults.

Keywords: biology; diet; malaria; mosquito; nutrition.