U.S. flagAn official website of the United States government
                    Here's how you know **Official websites use .gov**
                            
                            A **.gov** website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
 **Secure .gov websites use HTTPS**
                            
                            A **lock** (                            
                              A locked padlock                                                      
                            
                            ) or **https://** means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Menu Agricultural Research Service
						
                    U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
 Tropical Crop and Commodity Protection Research: Hilo, HI
 close



    Research

                    Research Projects
                                    Publications
                                    Collaborations
                                    News
                People

                    Staff Listing
                                    Careers


        


                    Scientist Pages
                        Acebes-Doria, Angelita
                                    Cha, Dong
                                    Follett, Peter
                                    Johnson, Melissa
                                    Liang, Peishih
                                    Manoukis, Nicholas
                                    Siderhurst, Matthew
                                    Sun, XiuxiuSearch small
                    Search
            
            ARS Home
                                About ARS
                                Contact Us




ARS Home Pacific West Area Hilo, Hawaii Daniel K. Inouye U.S. Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center Tropical Crop and Commodity Protection Research Research Publications at this Location





- ARS National Programs
- Search for a scientific manuscript
- Search for a research project
- ARS Software
- Programs and Projects
- Collaborations
- Subjects of Investigation
- Publications

Title:   Author  item
                                            BUTAIL, SACHIT - New York Universityitem
                                            Manoukis, Nicholasitem
                                            DIALLO, MOUSSA - University Of Bamakoitem
                                            RIBEIRO, JOSE - National Institutes Of Health (NIH)item
                                            PALEY, DEREK - University Of Maryland
  Submitted to: Journal of Medical Entomology
                                    Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
                                    Publication Acceptance Date: 1/29/2013
                                    Publication  Date: 5/13/2013
                                    Citation: Butail, S., Manoukis, N., Diallo, M., Ribeiro, J., Paley, D. 2013. The Dance of Male Anopheles gambiae in Mating Swarms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 552-559.Interpretive Summary: This paper describes  results of 3D measurements of male Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes in natural swarms over time (tracking). We show that the movement of males in these mating aggregations is different in the horizontal versus vertical directions and also that the movement patterns can be modeled as a simple pendulum. In addition, we examine the coordination between neighboring mosquito males.
                                Technical Abstract: The mating behavior of the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae is of great interest from a fundamental and applied perspective. One of the most important elements of mating in this species is the crepuscular mating aggregation (swarm) composed almost entirely of males, where most coupling and insemination is believed to occur. In this study we characterize the movement of male An. gambiae using three-dimensional trajectory data of ten wild mosquito swarms filmed in Mali, Africa. We show two new results. First, by modeling the movement of a mosquito as a damped harmonic oscillator and calculating its velocity autocorrelation in three spatial dimensions, we show that the vertical component of the mosquito motion is overdamped with an average natural frequency below 0.5 Hz, whereas the horizontal motion is underdamped with more than double the average natural frequency. In high wind, both the vertical and horizontal motions are underdamped and the average natural frequencies are the highest. Second, we show that the predicted average disagreement in the direction of motion of individual uncoordinated mosquitoes in a model swarm is greater than the average disagreement we observed between each mosquito and its three closest neighbors, with the smallest level of disagreement occurring for the nearest neighbor in seven out of ten swarms. In high wind, the alignment of the direction of motion between nearest neighbors is the highest.


Return to top


Connect with ARS Sign up


ARS Home
                            USDA.gov
                            Plain Writing
                            Policies & Links
                            Civil Rights Statements
                            FOIA
                            Accessibility Statement
                            Privacy Policy
                            Non-Discrimination Statement
                            Quality of Information
                            USA.gov
                            WhiteHouse.gov