Experiment 2: pure glyphosate and food limitation
The purpose of the second experiment was to evaluate the impact of
larval exposure to glyphosate associated to a nutritional stress on
mosquito life history traits and susceptibility to malaria parasite
infection. For this purpose, larvae, reared in a 0.05 mg/L glyphosate
solution, were either daily fed with 0.5 mg (standard colony maintenance
diet) or with 0.25 mg of food (nutritional stress). The specific food
treatments were chosen based on a pilot study, with the goal of
generating a nutritional stress that did not significantly impact larval
survival rate. One day old mosquito larvae were randomly assigned to
four experimental groups (160 larvae/ per group): (1) glyphosate
exposure and standard diet, (2) glyphosate exposure and nutritional
stress, (3) unexposed to glyphosate and standard diet and (4) unexposed
to glyphosate and nutritional stress. Glyphosate solution was prepared
as described above with solid glyphosate (96% purity; provided by
Sigma-Aldrich, Switzeralnd).