DEVELOPMENT TIME AND RESISTANCE TO STARVATION OF MOSQUITO LARVAE

We evaluated a hypothesis on the existence of two ecological groups of mosquito larvae. One group inhabits bodies of water on the ground, su ch as ponds, ditches and marshes, and exhibits fast development and a limited ability to prolong development under feeding stress. The other group inhabits small containers such as leaf axils of plants, treehol es and man-made containers, and exhibits slower development and the ab ility to prolong immature development under feeding stress. We measure d development time in larvae of 14 species of mosquitoes and resistanc e to starvation in 22 species of mosquitoes from Venezuela. They inhab ited structures of six species of plants (phytotelmata), one type of a rtificial container, and two ground-water habitats. The ground-water m osquito larvae (from temporary and permanent pools) exhibited the fast est development and lowest resistance to starvation, as predicted. The phytotelm mosquitoes exhibited the slowest development and greatest r esistance to starvation, with some exceptions. Mosquitoes that coloniz e plant structures late in succession showed a lesser resistance to st arvation than those that colonize during early succession. In man-made containers, mosquito species originally from phytotelmata [e.g. Aedes aegypti (L.)] showed greater resistance to starvation than did mosqui to species originally from ground-water habitats (e.g. Culex quinquefa sciatus Say), however development times for the two groups were simila r. Rather than two discrete groups of mosquitoes, there is a diversity of traits related to selective pressures operating in the diverse aqu atic habitats of the mosquito larvae.