Variation of the Phlebotominae (Diptera: Psychodidae: Phlebotominae) Assemblage in Response to Land Use Changes in an Endemic Area of Leishmania Transmission in Northeast Argentina

Abstract

Leishmaniases are a global health problem and in Argentina are considered emerging diseases. The new transmission scenarios of tegumentary leishmaniasis are especially important given that large areas of forest are being transformed into rural and urban systems. The aim of this study was to analyze the impact of the construction of a large public building and a neighborhood on the assemblage of Phlebotominae in a rural area with forest remnants and to correlate the changes observed in the species assemblage with characteristics of the environment. Entomological surveys with light traps were conducted on the construction campus in the northeastern region of Argentina at six sites representing different environmental situations. Structural environmental characteristics and meteorological conditions were recorded and analyzed. At least 16 species of Phlebotominae sand flies were collected, the most prevalent being Nyssomyia whitmani (Antunes & Coutinho), followed by the genus Brumptomyia (França & Parrot) and Migonemyia migonei (França). Our study provides evidence of how the structure of the assemblages and prevalent species respond to anthropogenic disturbances. As the construction progressed, both Ny. whitmani and the genus Brumptomyia were favored. The genus Brumptomyia was favored at sites surrounded by high proportions of forest, within patches of remnant vegetation, and relatively far from anthropogenic disturbances, while Ny. whitmani, the main vector of tegumentary leishmaniasis in the region, increases their abundant at short and intermediate distances from vegetation margins and areas close to anthropogenic disturbances, therefore increasing the risk of human exposure to vectors.

Population dynamics of Nyssomyia whitmani (Diptera: Psychodidae) in domestic and peridomestic environments in Northeast Argentina, a tegumentary leishmaniasis outbreak area

“…Describing the variables potentially associated with this fragmented distribution requires a regional macro-scale modeling, which is currently being carried out, and could effectively be extrapolated to micro-scale data such as those analyzed in the presented work. Moreover, these micro-scale variables have been described in time and space in the same study region in several studies (Fernández et al 2020, 2023, Quintana et al 2020, Manteca-Acosta et al 2021, Santini et al 2022).…”

“…Previous studies have analyzed the seasonal fluctuations of the abundance of hematophagous vectors and in particular of phlebotominae (Souza et al 2002, Teodoro et al 2003, Colla-Jacques et al 2010, Brandão-Filho et al 2011, Cruz et al 2013, de Oliveira Miranda et al 2015), some of them applying generalized additive models (GAMs) (Prudhomme et al 2015, da Cruz Ferreira et al 2017, Fernández et al 2020, Deb et al 2021) finding different abundance patterns depending on the location, environment under study, and meteorological conditions. Among those involving Ny.…”

Abundance of Lutzomyia longipalpis and Nyssomyia whitmani, the Leishmania spp. vectors in northeastern of Argentina: Are spatial and temporal changing patterns consistence?

“…whitmani periurban and rural landscapes, as it was already reported ( Pinheiro et al., 2013 ; Quintana et al., 2020 ). Although the city area and their characteristics are changing ( Fernández et al., 2020 ), these changes seems not intensive or extensive enough yet to produce a substantial change in the distribution of both vectors probably regarding the lack of significant modification of the main environmental determinants of abundance of each species at the analysed spatial scale ( Fernández et al., 2010 , 2012 ; Quintana et al., 2020 ). In this sense, the autocorrelation up to 450 m for Ny.…”