Publications
Interactions between the imperiled West Indian manatee, Trichechus manatus, and mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) in Everglades National Park, Florida, USA
Lawrence E. Reeves, Jennifer L. Gillett-Kaufman. Scientific Reports 10: 12971.
Mosquitoes feed from a wide range of animal hosts, including most terrestrial vertebrates: amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles. There are also mosquito species that feed primarily from fish (mudskippers, other gobies, and eels) and invertebrate annelids. Serological evidence of infection with mosquito-vectored viruses such as West Nile virus and Eastern equine encephalitis virus have been found in Wild bottlenose dolphins in Florida and South Carolina, suggesting that marine mammals may be bitten by mosquitoes. During my PhD work in the Florida Everglades, we observed mosquitoes landing upon and biting manatees - the first evidence that marine mammals interact directly with mosquitoes.
Cicinnus chambersi: A new species of sack-bearer moth (Lepidoptera, Mimallonidae, Cicinninae) from southeastern Arizona, USA
Ryan St. Laurent, Lawrence E. Reeves, Akito Y. Kawahara. ZooKeys 931: 49-71.
In 2015, I collected a moth in the Pajarito Mountains near the international border in southeastern Arizona. A few years later, I showed it to Ryan St. Laurent at the Florida Museum, and he recognized it as a potentially new species from the genus Cicinnus. With our advisor at the time, Akito Kawahara, we described it as Cicinnus chambersi, only the second species of Cicinnus known from the U.S., and named for our good friend and desert dweller, Aaron Chambers, mostly so he wouldn’t get so mad at us when we’re late for desert rendezvous because we ran into interesting creatures on our way to meet.
Host associations of Culex (Melanoconion) atratus (Diptera: Culicidae) and Culex (Melanoconion) pilosus from Florida, USA
Lawrence E. Reeves, Isaiah Hoyer, Carolina Acevedo, Nathan D. Burkett-Cadena. Insects 10: 239
Mosquitoes from the Culex subgenus Melanoconion can be vectors for various pathogens including Venezuelan equine encephalitis. Interestingly, members of this group have distinct host associations, with species that specialize on mammals, or reptiles, among others, or that are relative generalists. We collected Melanoconion mosquitoes in the Florida Everglades and characterized the host associations of two species, Culex atratus and Culex pilosus, and found that both are specialists of reptiles, particularly feeding on native and nonnative species of Anolis lizards.
Crocodylus acutus ectoparasites
Lawrence E. Reeves, C. Roxanne Connelly, Kenney L. Krysko. Herpetological Review 50: 131-132.
While sampling mosquitoes in the Florida Everglades, I encountered two adult crocodiles, likely females searching for nesting sites, crossing the road. Both individuals were being swarmed and fed upon by Aedes taeniorhynchus mosquitoes. Aedes taeniorhynchus has been known to primarily feed from mammals and birds, and this short manuscript reported on their use of these crocodilian hosts.
Human-powered pop-up resting shelter for sampling cavity-resting mosquitoes
Nathan D. Burkett-Cadena, Isaiah Hoyer, Erick Blosser, Lawrence E. Reeves. 2019. Acta Tropica 190: 288-292.
Collecting large numbers of mosquitoes is relatively simple using traps baited with host cues such as carbon dioxide. Such traps primarily collect host-seeking females, and other methods are needed for sampling blood-fed individuals. After taking a blood meal, many mosquito species become inactive and rest in dark, humid microhabitats where they can digest their blood meal and are unlikely to be disturbed. We developed a resting shelter for sampling such cavity-resting mosquitoes, in which mosquitoes can be captured without the need for a battery-powered aspirator - a method ideal for sampling blood fed mosquitoes in remote locations.
Barcoding blood meals: New vertebrate-specific primer sets for assigning taxonomic identities to host DNA from mosquito blood meals
Lawrence E. Reeves, Jennifer Gillett-Kaufman, Akito Y. Kawahara, Phillip E. Kaufman. 2018. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 12: e0006767.
Modern blood meal analyses - the taxonomic identification of mosquito hosts via molecular techniques - rely largely on DNA- and PCR-based techniques. To make host identifications, DNA is extracted from blood-fed mosquitoes, and PCR, using vertebrate-specific primer sets, selectively amplifies vertebrate host DNA templates, while excluding co-amplification of mosquito templates. We designed new PCR primers that amplify the DNA barcoding region of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene from a universal range of terrestrial vertebrate groups that promote the use of DNA barcoding in mosquito blood meal analysis.
Identification of Uranotaenia sapphirina as a specialist of annelids broadens known mosquito host use patterns
Lawrence E. Reeves, Chris J. Holderman, Jennifer L. Gillett-Kaufman, Akito Y Kawahara, Phillip E. Kaufman, Nathan D. Burkett-Cadena. 2018. Communications Biology 1: 92.
The females of most mosquito species require a blood meal, taken from another animal, in order to produce viable eggs. This quirk of their biology is the reason mosquitoes can be effective vectors of pathogens and parasites, and it’s the reason they have had such tremendous impacts on our species. Mosquitoes have been known to feed from vertebrate host animals, including amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles. Each mosquito species has its unique host associations with some species being relative generalists, and others being narrow specialists. In this paper, we reported the first evidence of a mosquito species specializing on an invertebrate host, annelid earthworms and leeches.
Interactions between the invasive Burmese python, Python bivittatus Kuhl, and the local mosquito community in Florida, USA
Lawrence E. Reeves, Kenneth L. Krysko, Michael L. Avery, Jennifer L. Gillett-Kaufman, Akito Y. Kawahara, C. Roxanne Connelly, Phillip E. Kaufman. 2018. PLOS ONE 13: e0190633.
Mosquitoes may be useful as a source of environmental DNA for the detection of species, or for characterizing vertebrate host communities. Burmese pythons, native to Asia, are established in the Everglades and southern Florida. These snakes are difficult to detect in the field because they are secretive, cryptically patterned, and occur in habitats that are difficult to access. In this study, we sought to determine whether mosquitoes fed from these non-native hosts. At a site in northern Florida where Burmese pythons were housed in outdoor enclosures where they were accessible to mosquitoes, we found at least three species, including species that are vectors of medically important pathogens take blood meals from Burmese pythons.
New county records for a tropical fruit-piercing moth, Eudocima apta (Walker, 1858), in Florida: A potential agricultural pest (Lepidoptera: Calpinae)
Lawrence E. Reeves, Jonathan S. Bremer, Isaiah J. Hoyer. Tropical Lepidoptera Research 27: 21-25.
While collecting mosquitoes in Everglades National Park, I typically camp at Flamingo. While I was processing mosquitoes, white-crowned pigeons fed from the ripe figs of the strangler fig tree above my tent. Inspecting the fig tree at night, we found bright eyeshine on the figs and hovering around the tree. The eyeshine belonged to Eudocima apta, a species of fruit-piercing moth that is seldom recorded from Florida. Over the subsequent weeks, we observed dozens of individuals at this, and other, strangler figs in the area, constituting the first records of congregations of these neotropical moths in the United States.
Maintenance of host DNA integrity in field-preserved mosquito (Diptera: Culicidae) blood meals for identification by DNA barcoding
Lawrence E. Reeves, Chris J. Holderman, Jennifer L. Gillett-Kaufman, Akito Y. Kawahara, Phillip E. Kaufman. 2016. Parasites & Vectors 9: 503.
When genetic samples are collected from the field, DNA needs to be effectively preserved during field storage and transport back to the lab. While there are established methods for preserving DNA specimens in the field, the preservation of host DNA from mosquito blood meals is complicated by the presence of DNA-degrading enzymes in the mosquito gut. We compared the PCR amplification success of mosquito blood meals preserved by four potential preservation methods to identify those that would be compatible with fieldwork at remote locations where it is necessary to field-preserve the integrity of host DNA for extended periods of time.
Notes on the larva and natural history of Lacosoma arizonicum Dyar
Ryan A. St. Laurent, David L. Wagner, Lawrence E. Reeves, Akito Y. Kawahara. 2017. Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 71: 177-181.
The moth family Mimallonidae is not well studied. Globally, there are about 300 described species, with only four known from the US. Species in this family are known as the sack-bearers because their larvae build tent-like shelters on the leaves of their host plant. While we were in Arizona collecting butterflies last fall, we found Lacosoma arizonicum larvae on some oaks in the Huachuca Mountains, and reported these novel observations.