Effects of Alternative Blood Sources on Infected Females within and across Generations.

bacteria have been identified as a tool for reducing the transmission of arboviruses transmitted by . Research groups around the world are now mass rearing -infected for deliberate release. We investigated the fitness impact of a crucial element of mass rearing: the blood meal required by female to lay eggs. Although almost exclusively feed on human blood, it is often difficult to use human blood in disease-endemic settings. When females were fed on sheep or pig blood rather than human blood, egg hatch rates decreased in all three lines tested (uninfected, or infected by Mel, or AlbB ). This finding was particularly pronounced when fed on sheep blood, although fecundity was not affected. Some of these effects persisted after an additional generation on human blood. Attempts to keep populations on sheep and pig blood sources only partly succeeded, suggesting that strong adaptation is required to develop a stably infected line on an alternative blood source. There was a decrease in density when were fed on non-human blood sources. Density increased in lines kept for multiple generations on the alternate sources but was still reduced relative to lines kept on human blood. These findings suggest that sheep and pig blood will entail a cost when used for maintaining -infected . These costs should be taken into account when planning mass release programs.