Using Wolbachia to Suppress Mosquito Fertility

This activity guides the analysis of a published scientific figure from a study that tested whether releasing mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria could reduce mosquito populations.

To reduce mosquito populations and the diseases that they carry, scientists have developed techniques to suppress mosquito fertility. One technique involves breeding male mosquitoes in labs and infecting them with Wolbachia bacteria. When these infected males mate with uninfected wild females, the females cannot produce viable offspring. The figure shows the percentage of mosquito eggs that hatched at sites where infected male mosquitoes were released (gray bars) or not released (white bars).

The “Educator Materials” document includes a captioned figure, background information, graph interpretation, and discussion questions. The “Student Handout” includes a captioned figure and background information.

The “Resource Google Folder” link directs to a Google Drive folder of resource documents in the Google Docs format. Not all downloadable documents for the resource may be available in this format. The Google Drive folder is set as “View Only”; to save a copy of a document in this folder to your Google Drive, open that document, then select File → “Make a copy.” These documents can be copied, modified, and distributed online following the Terms of Use listed in the “Details” section below, including crediting BioInteractive.