background: aedes aegypti mosquito is responsible for transmitting human diseases like dengue and chikungunya. personal or space protection with insect repellents is a practical approach to reducing human mosquito contact, thereby minimizing disease transmission. essential oils are natural volatile substances from plants used as protective measure against blood-sucking mosquitoes. methods: twen...

Given the economic importance of insects and arachnids as pests of agricultural crops, urban environments or as vectors of plant and human diseases, various technologies are being developed as control tools. A subset of these tools focuses on modifying the behavior of arthropods by attraction or repulsion. Therefore, arthropods are often the focus of behavioral investigations. Various tools hav...

The present study provides an elaborate assessment of the performance of olfactometers in terms of odorant recovery for a selection of odorants emitted from livestock houses. The study includes three different olfactometer dilution systems, which have been in use at accredited odor laboratories. They consist of: (i) a custom-built olfactometer made of glass tubes, (ii) a TO8 olfactometer, and (...

Olfactometer experiments, in which arthropods are given the choice between two or more odor sources to test behavioral preferences, are commonly used in chemical ecology research. Results of such often lead to conclusions on behavior in an ecologically relevant setting. However, it is widely unknown how well these experiments reflect actual behavior in nature. Recently, we used natural insect h...

Studies on the response of the blackfly Simulium ornatum s.l (Diptera Simuliidae) to carbon dioxide (CO2), acetone, 1-octen-3-ol and air was conducted in the laboratory using a Y-tube olfactometer. The blackflies were found to exhibit a high degree of activity in the olfactometer and responded to the various odours. The results showed that CO2 and l-octen-3-ol were attractive to the flies at lo...

A 3-chamber in-line olfactometer designed for use with sand flies is described and tested as a high-throughput method to screen honeys for attractiveness to Phlebotomus papatasi (four geographic isolates), P. duboscqi (two geographic isolates), and Lutzomyia longipalpis maintained in colonies at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. A diversity of unifloral honey odors were evaluated as a...