6. Tools for mosquito blood meal identification

The identification of the vertebrate blood meal sources of mosquitoes allows insight to better understand the dynamics of vector-borne pathogens. To do so, different approaches have been used, based on the use of the remains of blood present in the abdomen of recently engorged mosquito females. Among others, different authors have used serological techniques to the more recently developed approaches based on host DNA amplification or mass spectrometry. These methods have allowed researchers to identify the vertebrate hosts of mosquitoes accurately to the species level or, even, at the individual level, providing information on the relative importance of different mosquito species in the transmission of particular pathogens. These approaches have been especially relevant to reveal the contact rates between vectors, susceptible and competent hosts, and mosquito-borne pathogens, including zoonotic ones. Additionally, these methods have revealed important asymmetries in the attraction of mosquitoes towards different host species, allowing to identify key vertebrates for the amplification of some pathogens. This chapter reviews those tools most frequently used for the identification of the blood meals of mosquitoes in order to highlight the main advantages and limitations of these methodologies.

This study was funded by the projects PGC2018-095704-B-I00 and PID2020-118205GB-I00 from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competition cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER). RGL was partially supported by a Margalida Comas contract from the Government of the Balearic Islands cofinanced by the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) (REF-PD/038/2019) and a Juan de la Cierva-Formación contract.