Figure 3
Effects of mating and starvation on orientation of female Cimex lectularius to human skin odor in an olfactometer. Percent response (a,b) represents the percentage of females that made a choice (skin swab or clean filter) of all females tested. (a) Unmated-Long: each female was housed with an infertile male (intromittent organ ablated, denoted by an X within the male sign) until she died; Mated-Long: each female was housed with a fertile male (denoted by a male sign) until she died. (b) Unmated-Short: each female was housed with an infertile male for 24 h and then with a female (denoted by an X within the male sign and then a female sign); Mated-Short: each female was housed with a fertile male for 24 h and then with a female (denoted by a male sign and then a female sign). (c,d) Olfactometer preference for human skin odor (left) vs. clean filter paper (right). Assays were conducted on four female treatment groups 8, 20, 30, and 40 days after they ingested a blood meal. Numbers within bars represent the total number of replications for that treatment. In (a,b), Control bioassays with clean filter papers of females of different starvation periods were pooled due to low response rates (< 15%, n = 40), and differences between unmated and mated females are significant at **P < 0.0096, ***P < 0.0003, according to Fisher’s exact test.
