CASA TLACUACHE
bringing our land to life,
and life to our land through
art, ecology & leyendas
un proyecto de
Ricardo Alberto Ramirez Garcia-Rojas y
Marcelo Alejandro Ramirez Garcia-Rojas
Entomopathogenic Fungi for Mosquito Control
Advised by Dr. Alexis Racelis, UTRGV School of Earth Environment and Sustainability Sciences; Dr. Daniel Flores, USDA APHIS; Dr. Joanne Rampersand, UTRGV School of Chemistry; Dr. Christopher Viteck, UTRGV School of Biology; Dr. Donald Pfister, Harvard University Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and Raheleh Filsoofi, UTGRV School of Fine Arts
Entomopathogenic (insect infecting) Fungi can be employed to control a wide variety of insects. They basically eat their insect host from the inside out.
A insect encounters a spore and as it rubs up next to it, the spore sticks onto the insect's exoskeleton. The spore germinates on the insect's body and sends out a germ tube to penetrate the host's exoskeleton. Once it has broken the insect's cuticle, the fungus continues colonizing the insect until it is immobilized and fully covered in a new batch of spores to start the process all over again.
One of the insects that is affected by fungal pathogens is the mosquito. Mosquitoes, especially the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is the main vector for the ZIKA virus.
Mosquitoes are the world's deadliest animal to humans. They kill over 700,000 people every year and account for 17% of the estimated global burden of infectious diseases.
This skeeter just got ate! Mycosed by Beauvaria bassiana.
The highest incidence of mosquito-vectored diseases happen in developing tropical countries and in remote communities, where commercial pesticides are not readily available, and where these pesticides are available, here is where they have the widest secondary effects on the earth's biodiversity.
However, entomopathogenic fungi can not only be used as a biocontrol for mosquitoes in their larval, pupal, and adult stages, but also, they can be cultivated on agricultural products and byproducts like rice and rice husks. The only considerable energy inputs in the cultivation process are creating heat to sterilize or process growing substrates for the fungi.
Entomopathogenic fungi can be delivered to infect adult mosquitoes inside of water storage pots.
Mosquitoes have greater oviposition when there is organic material in the water. We will recreate this environment within a flower pot that is inoculated with entomopathogenic fungi.
Tests on effects of glazed on transmission rates will be explored.
Mosquito pathogenic fungi can act quickly enough to reduce Malaria transmission from an infected to a uninfected host.
THE PURPOSE OF THIS PROJECT IS TO EMPOWER COMMUNITIES IN RESOURCE LIMITED AREAS TO PRODUCE ECOLOGICAL PESTICIDES TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC HEALTH FROM PREVENTABLE DISEASE VECTORS.
EVOLUTION OF CREATING ECOLOGICAL MOSQUITO INFECTION POTS
Based on Farenhorst, Marit & Farina, Daniela & Scholte, Ernst-Jan & Takken, Willem & H Hunt, Richard & Coetzee, Maureen & Knols, Bart. (2008). African Water Storage Pots for the Delivery of the Entomopathogenic Fungus Metarhizium anisopliae to the Malaria Vectors Anopheles gambiae s.s. and Anopheles funestus. The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene. 78. 910-6.
Highlights of Study:
-
Researchers tested attractiveness and effectiveness of pots inoculated with a Metarhizium anisopliae (M. anisopliae) oil spray for controlling malaria vectors Anopheles gambiae (An. gambiae) and Anopheles funestus (An. funestus).
-
Test pots were first sprayed with 30 mL of oil, left to dry for 2 hours, and subsequently treated with an additional 15 mL of either the 1.2 × 10^9 or 3 × 10^8 conidia/mL formulation, reaching an end concentration of 4 × 10^10 or 1 × 10^10 conidia/m^2 , respectively. Control pots were sprayed with 30 mL, and subsequently 15 mL, of only Ondina oil.
-
Handmade clay pots were observed to be attractive resting sites for male and female An. gambiae s.s. and were not repellent after impregnation with fungus.
-
M. anisopliae was highly infective and virulent after spray application inside pots. At a dosage of 4 × 10^10 conidia/m^2, an average of 95 ± 1.2% of An. gambiae s.s. obtained a fungal infection.
-
A lower dosage of 1 × 1010 conidia/m2 infected an average of 91.5 ± 0.6% of An. gambiae s.s. and 91.8 ± 1.2% of An. funestus mosquitoes.
-
Fungal infection significantly reduced mosquito longevity, as shown by differences between survival curves and LT50 values.
Creating Handmade Water Holding Pots:
First, I had to learn how to work with clay. Which was made possible by the support of Raheleh Filsoofi the students of the Fall 2018 Advanced Ceramics Course.
Once familiar with industry clay as a medium, I switched over to natively sourced clay to increase the accessibility of this proposed biotechnology
