Competition matters: using in vitro community models to study the impact of human skin bacteria on mosquito attraction

The human skin bacteria play an important role in the production of volatiles that attract mosquitoes. Using some most abundant bacterial species, we created vitro community models to assess whether increased microbial biodiversity could reduce attractiveness females dengue fever mosquito Aedes aegypti and co-culturing commensals affects overall attraction. More complex were less attractive female mosquitoes than simplest models. For instance, triple model was approximately three times Staphylococcus epidermidis alone. Our data show, for mimicking composition a highly individual anthropophilic Anopheles gambiae also more Ae. poorly An. . In line with these results, volatile analyses blends emitted by different showed had lower emission overall. Effects on responses differed sharply when species sharing same resources used growth, showing either competition or commensalism may influence their relative this consequently can responses. We conclude studies need take into account.