Nature and science
The mosquito colony raised from pitcher plants
Documented history and research · Sources compared
A mosquito living in water-filled leaves supplied Rutgers researchers with a laboratory colony and later researchers with a way to examine seasonal development.
A small habitat becomes a laboratory population
Farida Mahmood and Wayne Crans established a colony of Wyeomyia smithii from southern New Jersey. Their 1999 paper describes the insect’s immature stages developing in purple pitcher-plant leaves, then follows its life cycle under controlled laboratory conditions. At about 22 degrees Celsius, females emerged roughly two days later than males. Mahmood and Crans, life-history study (1999).
Females produced their first egg batch four to six days after emergence, and some laid as many as seven batches. The authors’ insects were not offered blood. Those observations concern this colony and these conditions; they should not be generalized to every population across the species’ broad geographic range. Mahmood and Crans, life-history study (1999).
Day length adds another experimental question
A later public gene-expression project compared populations designated KC from Maine and PB from New Jersey. Larvae were raised under long and short days and sampled by day and night. The design separated population origin, developmental state and time of sampling instead of attributing every difference to latitude alone. NCBI BioProject PRJNA412092.
The project record reports comparisons between developing larvae and larvae in diapause, a pause in development. It identifies hormonal and cell-signaling pathways as part of the investigation. The archive documents an experimental design and its stated aims and findings, but this account does not independently reanalyze the expression arrays or assign particular gene changes to wild New Jersey mosquitoes. NCBI BioProject PRJNA412092.
Selecting against an apparent connection between clocks
A separate study published online in 2011 and in print in 2012 used mosquitoes from three nearby collection areas within one New Jersey Pine Barrens bog. Researchers investigated the relationship between a seasonal day-length response and a laboratory measure of daily rhythmicity. After crossing selected lines, they deliberately selected combinations opposing the original genetic correlation. Bradshaw, Emerson and Holzapfel (2012).
The correlation broke down and reversed. The authors interpreted that reversal as evidence for genetic linkage rather than an unavoidable shared control of the two measured responses. The result challenged an assumed necessary connection between daily and seasonal timing. It concerned selected laboratory descendants of one local population, not proof that every component of every organism’s biological clocks evolves independently. Bradshaw, Emerson and Holzapfel (2012).
Sources and research limits
- Mahmood and Crans, life-history study (1999) — Indexed abstract, introduction and laboratory-method passages read; bibliographic record checked at PubMed.
- NCBI BioProject PRJNA412092 — Full public project description inspected.
- Bradshaw, Emerson and Holzapfel (2012) — Indexed full abstract and local-population methods inspected; author-hosted PDF discussion cross-checked.
The sources describe different experiments. Southern New Jersey collection and the later PB population are not assumed to be the same colony or exact collection site.