Objective
Hearing in mosquitoes is crucial for mating partner recognition. Within mating swarms, males hear the wing beat of females and chase them to copulate. Despite the importance of this behaviour, very little is known about the molecular mechanisms involved. I and my co-workers have recently discovered an auditory efferent system innervating the mosquito hearing organ, the Johnston's Organ (JO) that releases the biogenic amines octopamine and serotonin and modulates the auditory function. However, we still do not know how this efferent system modulates hearing in the context of swarming.
Given the intimate connection between hearing and swarming in mosquitoes, and considering that biogenic amines have been described in other insects to induce swarming, I hypothesize that biogenic amines induce mosquitoes to aggregate into swarms and upregulate their auditory sensitivity to increase male mosquito attraction to females. My objectives are to use a multidisciplinary approach, including molecular biology, physiological and behavioural methods, to study if biogenic amines increase the auditory sensitivity during swarming and to assess the potential of disrupting biogenic amine signalling to impair mosquito hearing and swarming.
To this end, I will first study temporal variations of biogenic amine signalling pathways in the mosquito JO during the swarming period. I will then generate mosquito mutants to impair biogenic amine signalling and subsequently use these mutants to assess their auditory function and swarming behaviour phenotypes aiming at defining a direct involvement of biogenic amines in mosquito hearing and mating.
We believe that our work will lead to developing novel mosquito control tools. Firstly, improving our knowledge on mosquito hearing can lead to develop novel acoustic traps. Secondly, the characterization of biogenic amine receptors could directly identify new insecticide targets. Thirdly, altering swarming behaviour can disrupt mosquito mating.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- medical and health sciences health sciences infectious diseases malaria
- medical and health sciences health sciences public health
- medical and health sciences basic medicine physiology
- natural sciences chemical sciences organic chemistry amines
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology invertebrate zoology
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2016
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
WC1E 6BT LONDON
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.