Phlebotominae in peri‐domestic and forest environments inhabited by Alouatta caraya in northeastern Argentina

Abstract

Multiple species of Phlebotominae are vectors of Leishmania (Protozoa: Trypanosomatidae), which causes visceral leishmaniasis (VL) and cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL). To describe the Phlebotominae (Diptera: Psychodidae) related to the environments of black and gold howler monkeys Alouatta caraya (Humbodlt, 1812) (Primates: Atelidae), potential vectors were sampled in different landscapes and vertical strata of sleeping trees. Phlebotomine captured between December 2011 and March 2012 (2365 individuals) belonged to eight species, of which Nyssomyia neivai (Pinto, 1926) (61.4%) and Migonemyia migonei (França, 1920) (18.73%) were the most abundant, and Ny. withmani was recorded for the first time in the Chaco province. In the ‘peri‐domestic’ landscape, the phlebotomine were mainly captured in henhouses (78.7%), whereas the tree canopy in ‘rural’ and ‘wild’ landscapes yielded 31.2% and 29.1% of the phlebotomine, respectively. A significant association between the type of landscape and the species of phlebotomine was observed by multivariate analysis. Lutzomyia longipalpis (Lutz & Neiva, 1912) and Mg. migonei were associated with ‘peri‐domestic’ landscape, and Ny. neivai was associated with the ‘wild’ landscape. The results of this prospective study suggest that the interaction between phlebotomine and A. caraya could be a key factor with respect to understanding the epidemiology of leishmaniasis.

Ecological Aspects of the Phlebotominae Fauna (Diptera: Psychodidae) among Forest Fragments and Built Areas in an Endemic Area of American Visceral Leishmaniasis in João Pessoa, Paraíba, Brazil

“…Deforestation impacts the diversity of sand flies in three different ways when comparing disturbed and undisturbed areas. First, the diversity in the disturbed areas is lower than in the undisturbed areas as reported by Oliveira et al [64], Miranda et al [40], and Pinheiro et al [41]; second, there is no difference between disturbed and undisturbed areas as observed by Galati et al [34], Lahouiti et al [65], and Sanguinette et al [66]; finally, diversity is higher in the disturbed areas than in the undisturbed areas as shown by Gonçalves et al [67], Martinez et al [68], Nascimento et al [69], and Pereira et al [70]. These differences probably occur due to the conservation status of the disturbed and undisturbed areas.…”

“…Habitat changes modify the population response to abiotic conditions [68], which can cause a loss of diversity as observed among populations of the forest area and the built area. The built area showed a significant positive relationship with temperature and humidity, results already verified in urban areas in the Northeast and Central-West Brazilian regions [9,76,82].…”

Distribution of Phlebotominae (Diptera: Psychodidade) species and human cases of leishmaniasis in the Province of Corrientes, Argentina

“…neivai, Ny. whitmani and Mg. migonei in urbanized environments, could be related to peri-urban areas or intra-urban vegetation patches, since these species are favored by both anthropic modifications and arboreal vegetation as it was observed in previous studies in the province of Corrientes (Santini et al, 2015;Berrozpe et al, 2019;Martínez et al, 2019). A study carried out in Brazil, which assessed the presence of species in urban, transition and rainforest areas, found also the greatest species diversity in the transition zone (de Castilho Sanguinette et al, 2015).…”

“…San Antonio n.d. (Castro, 1959) Santa Tecla 1993-1998(Salomón et al, 2002) Ituzaingó 1993-1998(Salomón et al, 20022009) Ita-Ibaté 1993-1998(Salomón et al, 2002) Villa Olivari 1993-1998(Salomón et al, 2002) Bella Vista 1998(Borda et al, 1998bSalomón et al, 2006a; 1997, 1993-1998(Spinelli et al, 1999Salomón et al, 2002 Regarding positive sites for human CL reports, cooccurrence of human cases and presence of Ny. neivai have been recorded in Apipé, Corrientes, Bella Vista, Itatí, Riachuelo, Santo Tomé, Villa Olivari and Paso de la Patria (Borda et al, 2006;Salomón et al, 2002;2006a;2009;Martínez et al, 2019), human cases without vector presence were only recorded in Mercedes while no Phlebotominae samplings were carried out in the remaining eight localities with human cases (Fig. 3).…”