The Genetic Architecture Underlying Biting in the Pitcher-Plant Mosquito, Wyeomyia smithii

Abstract

By taking multiple blood meals, a female mosquito is ideally suited as a vector for transmitting blood-borne diseases. With the ultimate goal of preventing pathogen transmission by mosquitoes, we determined the genetic architecture underlying blood feeding (biting) in Wyeomyia smilhii. We crossed an obligately non-biting northern population and a biting southern population of Wj,eomyia smithii and assayed the propensity to bite among the biting parent, Fl, F2, and backcross generations. A JointScaling test revealed that the evolutionary transformation from a southern, bloodfeeding population to a northern, obligate non-biting population involved additive and dominance, but not maternal or epistatic effects. This result contrasts markedly with earlier findings in other phenotypes that epistasis plays a consistent role in the evolution of seasonal adaptation in this species.