Egg maturation in neotropical malaria vectors: one blood meal is usually enough

The requirement of more than one blood meal to complete a gonotrophic cycle is reported here to be infrequent among field-collected Anopheles (Nyssorhynchus), including Anopheles darlingi, South America's most important malaria vector. The overall frequencies of host-seeking females that did not develop eggs after one blood feeding were low for Anopheles darlingi (6.6%), Anopheles rondoni (5.0%), and Anopheles triannulatus (2.2%); the majority of wild-caught females that did not develop eggs after one blood meal were nulliparous. Laboratory-reared Anopheles albimanus and Anopheles albitarsis, other species of the same subgenus, were grown on enriched and impoverished larval diets to yield a range of adult sizes and to examine relationships between egg maturation, body size, and blood meal intake. 10.7% of nulliparous An. albimanus and 22.9% of An. albitarsis failed to mature eggs after sugar and one blood meal, and shorter wings and smaller blood meals predisposed females to require multiple blood feeds for egg maturation. Unmated An. albitarsis were significantly more likely than mated females not to develop eggs. Multiple blood meals within a single gonotrophic cycle appear to be less important in the life histories of neotropical Nyssorhynchus species compared to afrotropical malaria vectors.