Publications by authors named "Matthew Wolkoff"

mosquitoes transmit several pathogens to humans and animals, including viruses that cause West Nile fever and St. Louis encephalitis and filarial nematodes that cause canine heartworm and elephantiasis. Additionally, these mosquitoes have a cosmopolitan distribution and provide interesting models for understanding population genetics, overwintering dormancy, disease transmission, and other important and ecological questions.

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Article Synopsis
  • After successfully getting adult mosquitoes to reproduce and feed in the lab, maintaining a colony becomes easier but still requires careful management.
  • Larvae need enough food without excessive bacteria, and proper density is vital to avoid overcrowding that can stunt development and affect the sex ratio and reproduction.
  • Adult mosquitoes should have continuous access to water and sugar for optimal nutrition to maximize offspring production, and this document outlines methods for sustaining the Buckeye strain and offers tips for researchers to adapt these methods.
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larvae are well adapted to growing and developing in containers, and therefore collecting and rearing field-collected to adulthood in the laboratory is relatively straightforward. What is substantially more challenging is simulating natural conditions that encourage adults to mate, blood feed, and reproduce in laboratory settings. In our experience, this is the most difficult hurdle to overcome when establishing new laboratory colonies.

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The Northern House mosquito, , is an important disease vector, and females are capable of surviving the winter in a state of overwintering diapause. This species' diapause response has been extensively studied, and recent evidence suggests that the circadian clock is involved in measuring seasonal changes in daylength to initiate the diapause response. However, differences in the circadian activity of diapausing and non-diapausing have not been thoroughly investigated.

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This article includes new records, distribution, and updated checklist of Phlebotomine sand flies (Psychodidae, Diptera) in the Old World (Africa including West Indian Ocean Islands, Southwest Asia, and Central Asia) based on specimen collections housed in different repositories worldwide. About 124 species have primary types housed in 5 repositories including holotypes (45 species, 4 subspecies), syntypes (28 species, 3 subspecies), "types" (14 species), allotypes (10 species), paratypes (36 species, 3 subspecies), lectotypes (13 species), and cotype (5 species), mounted on 671 slides. New abbreviations were proposed for 2 subgenera in the genus Phlebotomus and 6 subgenera in the genus Sergentomyia.

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This article includes the records and distribution of Phlebotomine sand flies (Psychodidae, Diptera) in the New World based on the specimen collections housed in 2 repositories, the US National Museum of Natural History and the Museum of Entomology, Florida State Collection of Arthropods. Approximately 128 species have primary types housed in the 2 repositories, including holotypes (47 species, 3 subspecies), "types" (7 species), allotypes (52 species, 6 subspecies), lectotypes (4 species), paratypes (93 species, 10 subspecies), and neoallotype (1 species), mounted on slides, with a total of 1,107 type slides. For species diversity, collection data from 24 countries in the sand fly database were analyzed according to the number of species present, specimen records, decade of collections, and countries where collections were conducted.

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