Mosquito Sex Just Got Interesting: EPA goes national with new biocontrol method

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Dec 19, 2023, 07:37 ET

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just registered a method to reduce mosquito bites using - believe it or not - male mosquitoes. A Kentucky-based company named "MosquitoMate" produces male mosquitoes that are effectively sterile. When they mate with female mosquitoes, the resulting eggs don't hatch. "If enough eggs don't hatch, then the mosquito population goes down," says Dr. Stephen Dobson, the MosquitoMate founder and CEO.

Importantly, male mosquitoes don't bite people or feed on blood. Only female mosquitoes bite. "Female mosquitoes blood feed for protein to make eggs. Male mosquitoes feed on nectar and are pollinators," said Dobson. The newly approved method does not use genetic modification (i.e., it's non-GMO) and is listed as an organic product. With increasing concerns about the potential negative effects of traditional chemical pesticides on bees and other beneficial insects, the non-chemical MosquitoMate approach has been welcomed as a safer alternative. "A male mosquito is not going to mate with a bee or butterfly," says Dobson. The new method can be applied in sensitive areas, where there are environmental concerns about chemical use.

Previously, the EPA had approved MosquitoMate releases but had limited its use to a subset of states. With the latest announcement, the EPA has now approved nationwide use, including Pacific and Caribbean territories. "This is wonderful news," says Dobson, "because the areas that most struggle with mosquito bites and mosquito-transmitted diseases didn't previously have access to the method," and now they will.

It has been a long process. The initial MosquitoMate request to the EPA was in 2011. Since then, MosquitoMate has been selling male mosquitoes to municipal agencies, homeowners and businesses within the subset of approved states. The results using MosquitoMate males include a published study from Fresno California, which saw its mosquito population reduced more than 95%. The latest EPA announcement means that MosquitoMate can now expand its operations nationally, following its receipt of local registrations in individual states.

Mosquitoes are widely considered the 'most dangerous animal,' and are responsible for hundreds of thousands of human deaths per year. Traditionally, most mosquito carried diseases occur outside the USA. However, with global trade and human travel around the planet, diseases including malaria, Zika, dengue and West Nile are becoming a problem inside the USA. The traditional geographic range of mosquitoes is also affected by climate change. Furthermore, there is a growing problem of mosquito resistance to traditional chemical pesticides, which make existing control tools less effective. "We need new tools in the toolbox to fight mosquitoes," says Dobson.

The sterility results from a remarkably common and small participant. Bacteria named 'Wolbachia' cause the sterility, and these microbes are found in over half of all insects. "If you swing a net and randomly catch a beetle, butterfly, grasshopper and bee," Dobson says, "odds are that half of them will be naturally infected with Wolbachia." By moving the Wolbachia bacteria from one mosquito to another, "this is how we sterilize the mosquitoes," added Dobson. No genetic modification or chemicals are required.

There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes on the planet, and most of them don't bite people or cause disease. "We're not trying to eliminate all mosquitoes," says Dobson. Instead, the mosquitoes being sterilized by MosquitoMate are an 'invasive species' in the USA and were accidentally introduced. The Tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus) is originally from Asia and arrived in 1985 in a shipload of used tires.

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SOURCE MosquitoMate, Inc