Mosquito food gets some publicity

In the mosquito systems I study larvae consumer a wide variety of food items, including non-living particles (mostly detritus) and living organisms.  Among the latter category are bacteria, fungi, as well as protozoans.  The first two microorganism groups have recently received comparably more attention in the scientific literature when it comes to mosquito forage, although the latter group are perhaps the most fascinating.  With Dr. Jamie Kneitel at UC Sacramento, we have explored the protozoans in both tree hole and tire mosquito habitats.  The sheer diversity is pretty stunning (> 50 different types identified) but in spite of this we know little about them.  Some past work has shown that mosquitoes can affect protozoans by consuming them but also perhaps causing them to encyst.  Back when I was a doctoral student I took some images of Rotifers that were attached to a mosquito pupa (below).

Rotifers attached to the abdominal segments of a mosquito pupa (D.A. Yee)

Protozoans are kind of like the Mama bear from Goldilocks for those of us who study  mosquito dominated systems.  Recall that mama bear had porridge that was too hot, a chair that was too big, and a bed that was too soft.  In this case, protozoans are too small, to hard to identify, and perhaps too hard to work with in the lab (at least compared to mosquitoes!).   For these reasons, they are often ignored when it comes to food webs of mosquitoes systems.  

I got to thinking about protozoans by seeing the results of the recent 2011 Olympus BioScapes photo competition.  This annual competition seeks to find outstanding microscopic images of the scientific world.  This years winner was (you guessed it) an image of a rotifer (and a stunning one it is).

  

Photo of the rotifer Floscularia ringens feeding.   Photo by C. Krebs

Among the other winners was this amazing video of the ubiquitous Paramecium (select the 4th place winner).

Jeff Skiff, a master student in my lab will be starting his research on how different species of mosquitoes and protozoans interact in mosquito systems.  This work will hopefully shed some more light on these amazing little animals.  Stay tooned!