P-38 - Exploring Fungi as a Carbon Dioxide Source for Enhancing Attractiveness of the BG-Sentinel 2® Mosquito Trap

Abstract: Mosquito traps that target host seeking mosquitoes often use carbon dioxide (CO₂) to enhance catches. The CO₂ sources commonly used are compressed gas cylinders or dry ice sublimation. Garden City Fungi produces a product, ExHale®, that releases CO₂ produced by fungal mycelia. Their product literature claims CO₂ cultivation 24 hours a day for 6 months. A pilot study to test if mosquitoes are attracted to fungal generated CO₂ was conducted from August to October 2024. Three BG-Sentinel 2 traps with BG lures® were set weekly for 3 consecutive nights. One trap used dry ice as the CO₂ source, another used two bags of ExHale® fungi and the third trap was the BG lure® only. Each night the trap configuration was rotated to account for positional bias. Mosquitoes were identified to species. Most of the mosquitoes caught were Culex nigripalpus (73%). Overall, dry ice was the most effective (89% total mosquito numbers), followed by ExHale® fungi (6%) then BG lure alone (4%). The ExHale® fungi was more effective (19% of mosquitoes) when only primary vector species, are considered. Limitations of the study are the small sample size and unknown number of ExHale® packages to use per trap. While this exploratory exercise did not find equivalent performance between ExHale® and dry ice, it did show ExHale® to be more attractive than BG Lure® alone. We plan to do a more robust study in 2025.