| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The successful development of odour-baited trapping systems for mosquitoes depends on the identification of behaviourally active semiochemicals, besides the design and operating principles of such devices. A large variety of 'attractants' has been identified in laboratory investigations, yet few of these increase trap catches in the field. A contained system, intermediate between the laboratory and open field, is presented and previous reports that human foot odour induces behavioural responses of <it>Anopheles gambiae </it>confirmed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The response of 3–5 day old female <it>An. gambiae </it>towards odour-baited counterflow geometry traps (MM-X model; American Biophysics Corp., RI) was studied in semi-field (screen house) conditions in western Kenya. Traps were baited with human foot odour (collected on socks), carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>, 500 ml min<sup>-1</sup>), ammonia (NH<sub>3</sub>), 1-octen-3-ol, or various combinations thereof. Trap catches were log (x+1) transformed and subjected to Latin square analysis of variance procedures.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Apart from 1-octen-3-ol, all odour baits caused significant (P < 0.05) increases in trap catches over non-baited traps. Foot odour remained behaviourally active for at least 8 days after collection on nylon or cotton sock fabric. A synergistic response (P < 0.001) was observed towards the combination of foot odour and CO<sub>2</sub>, which increased catches of these odours alone by 3.8 and 2.7 times, respectively.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results are the first to report behavioural responses of an African malaria vector to human foot odour outside the laboratory, and further investigation of fractions and/or individual chemical components of this odour complex are called for. Semi-field systems offer the prospect of high-throughput screening of candidate kairomones, which may expedite the development of efficient trap-bait systems for this and other African mosquito species.</p>
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