Earth.com: Sleep-deprived mosquitoes are less interested in food

“It was a bit surprising. Sleep deprived or not, a blood meal should appeal to them,” UC doctoral student and study lead author Oluwaseun Ajayi said.

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

The researchers from UC’s College of Arts and Sciences and Virginia Tech’s Department of Biochemistry, found it challenging to study sleep patterns in mosquitoes. They spent more than a year developing protocols to study the phenomenon effectively – mosquitoes are easily disturbed by the presence of an observer, whom they detect as a potential host. This means that any experiments on mosquito sleep are likely to be confounded by the presence of the observer — a phenomenon called the observer effect — according to UC biologist Joshua Benoit.

“It’s really hard to quantify sleep in mosquitoes when, as soon as you walk in the room, you’re considered their Thanksgiving dinner,” Benoit said.

Read the Earth.Com story.

Featured image at top: UC assistant professor Joshua Benoit and his students examined the role sleep plays in three species of mosquitoes. Pictured from left are Lucas Gleitz, Evan Smith, Benoit and UC student Oluwaseun Ajayi. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand