Chagas disease, caused by the parasite
Trypanosoma cruzi
, is the most important vector-borne disease in Latin America. The vectors are insects belonging to the Triatominae (Hemiptera, Reduviidae), and are widely distributed in the Americas. Here, we assess the implications of climatic projections for 2050 on the geographical footprint of two of the main Chagas disease vectors:
Rhodnius prolixus
(tropical species) and
Triatoma infestans
(temperate species). We estimated the epidemiological implications of current to future transitions in the climatic niche in terms of changes in the force of infection (FOI) on the rural population of two countries: Venezuela (tropical) and Argentina (temperate). The climatic projections for 2050 showed heterogeneous impact on the climatic niches of both vector species, with a decreasing trend of suitability of areas that are currently at high-to-moderate transmission risk. Consequently, climatic projections affected differently the FOI for Chagas disease in Venezuela and Argentina. Despite the heterogeneous results, our main conclusions point out a decreasing trend in the number of new cases of
Tr. cruzi
human infections per year between current and future conditions using a climatic niche approach.
Trypanosoma cruzi, the causative agent of Chagas disease, is transmitted to mammals - including humans - by insect vectors of the subfamily Triatominae. We present the results of a compilation of triatomine occurrence and complementary ecological data that represents the most complete, integrated and updated database (DataTri) available on triatomine species at a continental scale. This database was assembled by collecting the records of triatomine species published from 1904 to 2017, spanning all American countries with triatomine presence. A total of 21815 georeferenced records were obtained from published literature, personal fieldwork and data provided by colleagues. The data compiled includes 24 American countries, 14 genera and 135 species. From a taxonomic perspective, 67.33% of the records correspond to the genus Triatoma, 20.81% to Panstrongylus, 9.01% to Rhodnius and the remaining 2.85% are distributed among the other 11 triatomine genera. We encourage using DataTri information in various areas, especially to improve knowledge of the geographical distribution of triatomine species and its variations in time.
The tomato moth, Tuta absoluta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), is a key pest of tomato, Lycopersicon esculentum L., crops in Central and South America. At present it is dispersing rapidly in Africa and Eurasian continents as an invasive pest, threatening worldwide tomato production. Pseudapanteles dignus (Muesebeck) (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) is an American endoparasitoid reported as the main natural enemy of T. absoluta in commercial tomato. To gain knowledge of the potential role of P. dignus in the biological control of this pest, we determined its population parameters in laboratory and the parasitoid's impact on T. absoluta in the field. In laboratory, lifetime fecundity was 193 eggs per female, and longevity was 24 and 26 d for female and male, respectively. The finite rate of increase (λ) was 1.15 per female per day and the intrinsic rate of natural increase (r(m)) was 0.14. The net reproductive rate (R(0)) was found to be 51.2, and generation time (T) 28.8 d. The time for doubling the population (DT) was 5 d. Furthermore, field parasitism of T. absoluta varied between 33 and 64% in the different years studied. Population parameters estimated in this study can be considered baseline information for a mass-rearing protocol of this parasitoid. Moreover, growth rates of P. dignus, particularly r(m), and its impact on field populations of T. absoluta indicated that this parasitoid is a valuable candidate for biological control of this pest.
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