Ambient light color does not detectably change the transient, flight-specific DEET response of Aedes aegypti

Ambient light color does not detectably change the transient, flight-specific DEET response in Aedes aegypti chamber recordings, with no color effect after baseline adjustment (p=0.47).

• Why it matters: Light color could plausibly alter how mosquitoes perceive or respond to DEET, but prior chamber findings were unclear and confounded by baseline activity differences across conditions.
• What they did: The authors reanalyzed an unpublished Carver (2018) chamber dataset: 12 recordings (~20 mosquitoes each) across six light colors (blue, green, orange, red, white, yellow), with ~10 minutes bait only then ~10 minutes bait plus DEET, using detectability and baseline-activity controls plus cross-session concordance and adjusted null testing.
• The result: DEET rapidly suppressed flight (ratio of means 1.99; one-sided p=0.058) and flight recovered within ~3 minutes, while presence stayed nearly flat (5.6 to 5.1 detections per frame), and after adjusting for baseline activity and color selection, no light color differed (p=0.47).