Color preference of Sergentomyia minuta (Diptera: Phlebotominae) determined using Flebocollect Do It Yourself light traps based on LED technology

Abstract

Whether phlebotomine sand flies show a preference for different light colors remains controversial. As light-capture methods are widely used to study sand flies, knowing the visual stimuli they respond to could help the design of novel control tools to prevent their attraction to hosts. We have detected a significant preference of male Sergentomyia minuta for green and red light sources. Accordingly, male S. minuta were 2.16 and 2.01 times more likely to be lured by Flebocollect model traps with green and red diode-lights, respectively, than the commercial CDC traps. Flebocollect traps are homemade light traps developed through citizen science. Dipterans are widely considered unable to distinguish the color red so this finding was unexpected. To our knowledge, this is the first description of a color preference in a species of the genus Sergentomyia. Our research also confirms the great potential of Flebocollect light traps for use in medical entomology studies.

Keywords: CDC; Flebocollect; Light preference; Phlebotomus; Sergentomyia.

Fig. 1

Traps set up to attract sand flies at the Animal Shelter of Torrelodones (Madrid, Spain). a Photo of a trapping site; b diagram of the shelter; c diagram of the two adjacent kennels where the traps (1–7) were installed forming an inverted “L.” *Specific sites where the four Flebocollect test traps were placed

Fig. 2

Boxplot showing the results of the descriptive analysis of phlebotomine sand fly preferences for different color lights (B, blue; C, control; G, green; R, red; Y, yellow respectively). X-axis, light color; Y-axis, capture rate. Median value, horizontal mid-line; minimum and maximum values, vertical line below and above the box, respectively; first and third percentiles, base and top of the box to the median line; outliers, atypical values represented as single points above the maximum line