INRA, Laboratoire de Toxicologie Environnementale, UR 406 Abeilles & Environnement, Avignon, France.
Pest Manag Sci. 2018 Dec;74(12):2707-2715. doi: 10.1002/ps.5090. Epub 2018 Jul 22.
Vector-borne diseases are of high concern for human, animal and plant health. In humans, such diseases are often transmitted by flying insects. Flying insects stop their flight when their kinetic energy cannot compensate for the wind speed. Here, the efficiency of an air curtain in preventing insects from entering a building was studied using the honey bee as a model.
Bees were trained to visit a food source placed in a building. The air curtain was tested with strongly motivated bees, when the visiting activity was very high. Airflow velocity was modulated by setting an air curtain device at different voltages. At the nominal voltage, the anti-insect efficiency was 99.9 ± 0.2% compared with both the number of bees at a given time in the absence of the air curtain and the number of bees before the activation of the air curtain. The efficiency decreased as the airflow velocity decreased.
The results show that an air curtain operating at an airflow velocity of 7.5 m s may prevent a strong flyer with high kinetic energy, such as the honey bee, from entering a building. Thus, air curtains offer an alternative approach for combating vector-borne diseases. © 2018 Society of Chemical Industry.
虫媒传染病对人类、动物和植物的健康都有很高的关注。在人类中，此类疾病通常通过飞行昆虫传播。当飞行昆虫的动能无法补偿风速时，它们会停止飞行。在这里，使用蜜蜂作为模型，研究了空气幕阻止昆虫进入建筑物的效率。
对蜜蜂进行了训练，使其访问建筑物内的食物源。当访问活动非常高时，使用强烈激励的蜜蜂对空气幕进行了测试。通过在不同电压下设置空气幕装置来调节气流速度。在标称电压下，与空气幕不存在时给定时间内的蜜蜂数量和空气幕激活前的蜜蜂数量相比，防虫效率为 99.9±0.2%。随着气流速度的降低，效率也降低。
结果表明，以 7.5 m/s 的气流速度运行的空气幕可以防止具有高动能的强飞虫（如蜜蜂）进入建筑物。因此，空气幕为防治虫媒传染病提供了一种替代方法。 © 2018 英国化学工业学会。
