Reason mosquitoes bite some people more than others
SURPRISINGLY few of the more than 3 000 mosquito species actually specialise in biting humans. Instead, most are opportunistic feeders – feeding when they are able and from lots of different sources.
But Aedes aegypti and Anopheles gambiae are known for their preference for human blood and their role as vectors which transmit disease. Aedes
aegypti has been linked to zika and dengue, while Anopheles gambiae carries the parasite which causes malaria.
Not only do certain mosquito species show very strong preferences for obtaining their blood meals from humans, they also appear to discriminate between people when choosing their next meal. I’m sure you’ve noticed something similar.
So why is it happening? What factors might influence the mosquito’s choice?
There are many old wives’ tales, some more plausible than others. Some think blood type, fair skin, being sweaty and even eating foods with garlic or apple cider vinegar can influence biting rates one way or the other.
There are plenty of these anecdotes and for the most part they don’t appear to have much influence when scientifically tested. But a great deal of research effort is spent on understanding mosquito feeding choices, primarily in the hope of manipulating their behaviour to control disease.
All mosquito species use carbon dioxide as a long-range indicator that a host is nearby. However, CO2 is ubiquitous and provides little information to help a specialist mosquito identify its preferred target.
Lactic acid has been demonstrated to be a significant attractant alongside CO2 and is much more prevalent in human odour than in other animals. Other compounds such as ammonia, some carboxylic acids, acetone and sulcatone also help complement this human bouquet.
Of course, this doesn’t tell us why my companions are generally bitten more than me, it just explains why humans end up as a mosquito’s meal and not a bird, cow or lizard. The best evidence for what motivates a mosquito’s choice between different people is the variation in our skin microbiota.
This microbiota is mostly non-pathogenic bacteria and fungi which live on our skin and in pores and hair follicles. The odour combination they emit in the form of volatile organic compounds is the critical factor in telling mosquitoes how tasty we’d be.
Our skin microbiota is not readily passed between people through contact. We have an estimated 1m bacteria per square cm of skin, often comprising hundreds of species. This means that mosquitoes might not be selecting based on “us” but rather the composition of the micro-organisms that live on our skin.
Given the variation and abundance of bacteria in our skin’s microbiota, it is perhaps unsurprising that the host-seeking female mosquito can detect these differences. We only need to consider female behaviour here as only they bite, and only then when they are producing their eggs.
The composition of our skin microbiota mostly depends on our environment – what we eat and where we live. Everything we touch, eat, drink and wash with has the potential to introduce new microbes, but there’s evidence that a person’s genetics can also influence skin microbiota to a lesser extent.
While we’re pretty sure that mosquitoes choose their human hosts according to the bacteria which live on our skin, it’s less clear why they prefer the odour signature of some skin’s microbial life over others.
If we could learn this secret, perhaps we could change our skin’s bacterial composition to make ourselves less appetising targets. |