Publications by authors named "Marcos Georgiades"

Article Synopsis
  • * Researchers used transcriptomics to discover a network of neuromodulators, highlighting octopamine as a crucial modulator for mosquito hearing during swarm time.
  • * Octopamine influences the mosquitoes' ear functions and is regulated by specific receptors, suggesting that targeting this auditory system could be a new strategy for mosquito control.
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Phonotaxis experiments can provide information on the spectrum of sounds relevant to mosquito acoustic behaviors. It is widely known that males of disease-transmitting species are attracted to tones with frequencies resembling the wingbeat frequencies of their conspecific females. Thus, phonotaxis experiments can be coupled with wingbeat frequency measurements to inform the development of vector control tools such as acoustic traps and lures.

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Despite the artificial conditions, flight tone recordings taken from tethered mosquitoes can provide valuable information on the acoustic signals produced by male and female mosquitoes. Although auditory responsiveness appears to be largely (and possibly exclusively) restricted to males, the flight tones of both sexes have sensory-ecological relevance, as it is the mixing of the two tones that produces audibility in males and thereby facilitates reproduction. This protocol describes how to record wing flapping from mounted mosquitoes and how to estimate wingbeat frequencies from those recordings.

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The acoustic physiology of mosquitoes is perhaps the most complex within the entire insect class. Past research has uncovered several of its-sometimes stunningly unconventional-principles, but many mysteries remain. Their solution necessitates a concerted transdisciplinary effort to successfully link the neuroanatomical and biophysical properties of mosquito flagellar ears to the behavioral ecology of entire mosquito populations.

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Mating swarms of malaria mosquitoes form every day at sunset throughout the tropical world. They typically last less than 30 minutes. Activity must thus be highly synchronized between the sexes.

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Background: Release of gene-drive mutants to suppress Anopheles mosquito reproduction is a promising method of malaria control. However, many scientific, regulatory and ethical questions remain before transgenic mosquitoes can be utilised in the field. At a behavioural level, gene-drive carrying mutants should be at least as sexually attractive as the wildtype populations they compete against, with a key element of Anopheles copulation being acoustic courtship.

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Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is a threat to future human wellbeing. Multiple factors contributing to the terminal auditory decline have been identified; but a unified understanding of ARHL - or the homeostatic maintenance of hearing before its breakdown - is missing. We here present an in-depth analysis of homeostasis and ageing in the antennal ears of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

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