Malaria mosquito rearing – maintaining quality and quantity of laboratory - reared insects

Entomologists often require large numbers of experimental insects for laboratory studies. The quality of these insects should be high and constant, otherwise the results of replicate experiments can be contradictive or results from subsequent fieldwork might be disappointing. The quality of experimental insects can be influenced by population density, nutrition, environmental conditions, etc. These factors can strongly influence the fitness of the insects and hence, the outcome of experiments and should therefore not be ignored. The rearing of malaria mosquitoes (Diptera, Culicidae, Anophelinae) is complex and demanding for several reasons. Anopheline larvae are affected by temperature, density and available nutrition; mating is not necessarily accomplished naturally and females need a blood meal to develop eggs. The climate chambers where the mosquitoes are kept are warm and sweaty. Because of these tropical conditions the larvae develop fast and need to be cared for daily. The Laboratory of Entomology in Wageningen has cultured different colonies of malaria vectors successfully for many years. In this paper we discuss different aspects off the rearing process which affect mosquito fitness and are of importance for the quality of fundamental and applied research.