Fig. 6
Experiment 5: Light exposure during the night modulates locomotor/flight activity behaviour in a time-specific manner. a Representative locomotor/flight activity plots during a 4 h time window of four individual mosquitoes. Mosquitoes were entrained to 12 h/12 h LD conditions (with one h dawn and dusk transitions). Activity during control days (days 2 and 3) under this normal photoperiod are shown (upper panels), and on day 4 of the experiment, mosquitoes were exposed to a 30 min, 300 lux white light pulse administered at a precise circadian time (lower panels). Control Day 1 is not shown, which was the first 24 h after introduction to the LAM unit. Running from left to right are four individual mosquitoes exposed to light at ZT12, ZT16, ZT22 or CT24/0. The 4 h time window shown for each mosquito is centred on this pulse time. b Mean flight activity during a 30 min light pulse delivered at precise Zeitgeber time (ZT)/circadian time (CT) (dotted bars) compared to activity during the same time period on the two prior, non-pulsed days (black and striped bars). One-way repeated measures ANOVAs (ZT12, effect of day, F (2,53) = 17.9, ***P < 0.001; ZT16, F (2,164) = 9.3, ***P < 0.001; ZT22, F (2,65) = 14.4, ***P < 0.001; and ZT24, F (2,29) = 4.2,*P <0.05) followed by post-hoc tests (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001). Values shown are mean ± S.E.M. of individual mosquito activity (n = 16–38 mosquitoes per time point). Activity is scored as the average number of LAM beam crossings per minute during the 30 min pulse duration determined for each individual mosquito