Atlas of Mexican Triatominae (Reduviidae: Hemiptera) and vector transmission of Chagas disease

Abstract

Chagas disease is one of the most important yet neglected parasitic diseases in Mexico and is transmitted by Triatominae. Nineteen of the 31 Mexican triatomine species have been consistently found to invade human houses and all have been found to be naturally infected with Trypanosoma cruzi. The present paper aims to produce a state-of-knowledge atlas of Mexican triatomines and analyse their geographic associations with T. cruzi, human demographics and landscape modification. Ecological niche models (ENMs) were constructed for the 19 species with more than 10 records in North America, as well as for T. cruzi. The 2010 Mexican national census and the 2007 National Forestry Inventory were used to analyse overlap patterns with ENMs. Niche breadth was greatest in species from the semiarid Nearctic Region, whereas species richness was associated with topographic heterogeneity in the Neotropical Region, particularly along the Pacific Coast. Three species, Triatoma longipennis, Triatoma mexicana and Triatoma barberi, overlapped with the greatest numbers of human communities, but these communities had the lowest rural/urban population ratios. Triatomine vectors have urbanised in most regions, demonstrating a high tolerance to human-modified habitats and broadened historical ranges, exposing more than 88% of the Mexican population and leaving few areas in Mexico without the potential for T. cruzi transmission.

Sleeping habits affect access to host by Chagas disease vector Triatoma dimidiata

“…Current estimates suggest that there is a disease burden reaching 29,385,250 disease-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and health care costs of over $24,000 million are attributed to Chagas disease, which exceeds that of other global diseases such as rotavirus infection ($2000 million) or the cervico-uterine cancer ($4700 million) [2, 3]. In Mexico, 31 triatomine species are currently reported, and T. cruzi transmission is reported in most of the territory [4, 5]. One to two million people are generally estimated to be infected with T. cruzi in Mexico, but the more pessimist figures estimate that it could reach 5.5 million people [6, 7].…”

Biological parameters of Meccus phyllosomus phyllosomus (Burmeister), 1835, Triatoma recurva (Stål), 1868 (Hemiptera, Reduviidae) and their laboratory hybrids

“…Asimismo, entre las nueve especies mexicanas de más importancia está Triatoma recurva, considerada un vector importante en las zonas norte y noroeste de México (1). Dado que algunos análisis moleculares (7,8) han establecido que T. recurva es filogenéticamente cercana a las subspecies de Meccus, en un estudio se entrecruzaron (incluidos cruces inversos) estas seis subspecies con T. recurva, con un único cruce exitoso: el de ♀ T. recurva y ♂ M. p. phyllosomus (9).…”

Morphological and morphometric analysis of scutella of six species and two subspecies ofTriatoma(Hemiptera: Reduviidae) in Mexico

“…The results of DCA included T. lecticularia within this group (Figure ). Even though several authors place T. lecticularia within the Lecticularia complex, these four species have morphological similarites and were considered in the taxonomic classification as species of small size (Lent and Wygodzinsky , Ramsey et al ).…”

“…T. rubida and T. lecticularia present distinctive morphological characteristics and they do not share geographical distribution (Galvão et al , Martínez‐Ibarra et al ). Triatoma rubida is limited to the Peninsula of Baja California, Sinaloa, and Nayarit, and five subspecies have been described (Ramsey et al ), which were placed in synonymy by Lent and Wygodzinsky (). So far, its taxonomic status remains inconclusive.…”