In Minnesota, there is one thing for certain during summer: mosquitoes.
You can smell the DEET and citronella in the air when you're around the bonfire or out camping. But new research has found that mosquitoes could learn to associate DEET with dinner.
Published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, the researchers from University of Tours in France and Virginia Tech conducted an experiment where they used a form of Pavlovian conditioning to see if mosquitoes could learn to associate DEET with a food reward.
In the experiment, mosquitoes would feed on warm blood through an artificial membrane. Then 20 seconds into their meal, the researchers released DEET into the enclosure with the mosquitoes. After three times, the mosquitoes learned to associate DEET with food.
“They are actually very excited about it, and they try to bite the smell of DEET to the point there they're very angry about that,” researcher Clément Vinauger told Minnesota Now host Nina Moini.
The study found when the trained mosquitos caught a whiff of DEET alone, more than 60 percent tried to feed again. That’s compared to 20 percent of untrained mosquitoes.
Vinaguer emphasizes that this scenario is not happening in nature. But, he said that if you have DEET bug spray that has worn off and isn’t strong enough to repel mosquitoes, they could learn an association between low concentrations of DEET and a blood meal, “their ability to adjust their behavior is more extensive than we thought of.”
That’s why Vinaguer said the study highlights the importance of continuing to wear bug spray with DEET and reapply as recommended by the manufacture.
“Following the specificities for the product that you bought is really critical to make sure it's effective.”
While the study can help prevent bug bites, it’s also important research because of the deadly diseases mosquitoes carry. Public health officials often consider the mosquito the “world’s deadliest animal.”
According to the CDC, the mosquito-borne disease malaria caused 597,000 deaths across 83 countries in 2023, “so that level of plasticity or adaptability in the mosquito is really critical,” Vinaguer said.
His future research will look into what is happening in the mosquito’s brain that makes them adaptable and whether those genes can be targeted to prevent mosquitoes from outsmarting humans.
