The molecular and neural determinants of olfactory behaviour in mosquitoes

Mosquito olfaction is a fascinating object of study, as mosquitoes are adapted to exploit diverse resources, such as plant- and animal-hosts, as well as oviposition sites in both aquatic and terrestrial environments. Most significantly, mosquito olfaction is the main mechanism by which female mosquitoes detect their prey, leading to unpleasant bites at best and transmitting lethal diseases at worst. For close to a century, scientific research has focused on the mosquito sense of smell with the hope of uncovering their secret chemical language, and with the ultimate purpose of using this knowledge for the benefit of society in the form of repellents and attractants. While we have discovered several behaviourally-active odorants and near complete olfactory receptor repertoires of several mosquito species, we are still suffering from a large gap of knowledge about mosquito semiochemicals and how they are encoded by olfactory receptors. This chapter aims to recapitulate which semiochemicals affect mosquito behaviour, their ecological contexts and how these chemicals are detected by olfactory receptors.