Abstract
Dietary restriction extends lifespan in many organisms, but little is known about how it affects hematophagous arthropods. We demonstrated that diet restriction during either larval or adult stages extends Aedes aegypti lifespan. A. aegypti females fed either single or no blood meals survived 30-40% longer than those given weekly blood meals. However, mosquitoes given weekly blood meals produced far more eggs. To minimize reproduction's impact on lifespan, adult mosquitoes were fed artificial blood meals containing <10% of the protein in normal human blood, minimizing egg production. A. aegypti fed artificial blood meals containing 25mg/ml of BSA had significantly shorter lifespans than those fed either 10 or 5mg/ml. To assess the impact of larval dietary restriction on adult lifespan, we maintained larval A. aegypti on 2X, 1X (normal diet), 0.5X or 0.25X diets. Adult mosquitoes fed 0.5X and 0.25X larval diets survived significantly longer than those fed the 2X larval diet regardless of adult diet. In summary, dietary restriction during both larval and adult stages extends lifespan. This diet-mediated lifespan extension has important consequences for understanding how dietary restriction regulates lifespan and disease transmission.