Assessing the importance of four sandfly species (Diptera: Psychodidae) as vectors of Leishmania mexicana in Campeche, Mexico

Abstract

Localized cutaneous leishmaniasis represents a public health problem in many areas of Mexico, especially in the Yucatan Peninsula. An understanding of vector ecology and bionomics is of great importance in evaluations of the transmission dynamics of Leishmania parasites. A field study was conducted in the county of Calakmul, state of Campeche, during the period from November 2006 to March 2007. Phlebotomine sandfly vectors were sampled using Centers for Disease Control light traps, baited Disney traps and Shannon traps. A total of 3374 specimens were captured in the two villages of Once de Mayo (93.8%) and Arroyo Negro (6.1%). In Once de Mayo, the most abundant species were Psathyromyia shannoni, Lutzomyia cruciata, Bichromomyia olmeca olmeca and Psychodopygus panamensis (all: Diptera: Psychodidae). The Shannon trap was by far the most efficient method of collection. The infection rate, as determined by Leishmania mexicana-specific polymerase chain reaction, was 0.3% in Once de Mayo and infected sandflies included Psy. panamensis, B. o. olmeca and Psa. shannoni. There were significant differences in human biting rates across sandfly species and month of sampling. Ecological niche modelling analyses showed an overall overlap of 39.1% for the four species in the whole state of Campeche. In addition, the finding of nine vector-reservoir pairs indicates a potential interaction. The roles of the various sandfly vectors in Calakmul are discussed.

Identification of phlebotomine sand flies (Diptera: Psychodidae) from leishmaniasis endemic areas in southeastern Mexico using DNA barcoding

“…High intraspecific divergence was also observed in Lu. cruciata and Pa. shannoni , which are also of potential medical importance in the Yucatan Peninsula (Pech‐May et al, , ). Pa. shannoni is a well‐established species in Mexico with recent report of population divergence in southern Mexico (Florin & Rebollar‐Téllez, ).…”

“…Lutzomyia ( Lutzomyia ) longipalpis and Pintomyia ( Pifanomyia ) evansi (Nuñez‐Tovar 1924) are the principal vectors of visceral leishmaniasis caused by Leishmania infantum (Nicolle 1908; Ibáñez‐Bernal, Rodríguez‐Domínguez, Gómez‐Hernández, & Ricardez‐Esquinca, ; Mauricio, Howard, Stothard, & Miles, ). Although Bichromomyia olmeca olmeca has been argued as the only competent vector of Leishmania mexicana (Biagi 1953), the causative agent of cutaneous leishmaniasis (González et al, ), Lutzomyia ( Tricholateralis ) cruciata , Psathyromyia ( Psathyromyia ) shannoni , Nyssomyia ylephiletor (Fairchild & Hertig 1952), and Psychodopygus panamensis (Shannon 1926) have also been hypothesized to be vectors in the Yucatan Peninsula (Pech‐May, Escobedo‐Ortegon, Berzunza‐Cruz, & Rebollar‐Téllez, ; Pech‐May et al, ; Sánchez‐García, Berzunza‐Cruz, Becker‐Fauser, & Rebollar‐Téllez, ). Lutzomyia ( Tricholateralis ) gomezi (Nitzulescu 1931), Lutzomyia ( Tricholateralis ) diabolica (Hall 1936), Pintomyia ( Pifanomyia ) ovallesi (Ortiz 1952), and Dampfomyia ( Dampfomyia ) anthophora (Addis 1945) are also suspected vectors of cutaneous leishmaniasis (Bonfante‐Garrido, Spinetti, Cupillo, Momen, & Grimaldi, ; Endris, Young, & Perkins, ).…”

Effect of trapping methods on the estimation of alpha diversity of a phlebotomine sandfly assemblage in southern Mexico

“…Shannon traps were by far the most efficient sampling method in this tropical forest. Similar results were obtained in several studies in the Mexican southeastern states of Campeche (Rebollar‐Téllez et al ., ; Pech‐May et al ., , ), Yucatan (Rebollar‐Téllez et al ., ), Quintana Roo (Cruz‐Ruiz et al ., ; Sánchez‐García et al ., ; May‐Uc et al ., ) and Chiapas (Pérez et al ., ). It is important to highlight that Shannon traps were primarily developed to collect sylvan mosquitoes using a horse as a bait during an epidemic of jungle yellow fever in Mato Grosso and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Shannon, ), and many years later, Pérez et al .…”

“…Biagi et al ., ; Rebollar‐Téllez et al ., ; Pech‐May et al ., , ; Sánchez‐García et al ., ; May‐Uc et al ., ). Furthermore, these species, together with L. olmeca olmeca , have been incriminated as vectors of Leishmania mexicana (Biagi et al ., ; Rebollar‐Téllez et al ., , , ; Pech‐May et al ., , ; Sánchez‐García et al ., ). Lutzomyia olmeca olmeca was collected in Shannon traps, Disney traps and CDC light traps, with similar abundances between these three traps, but dominated collections in Disney traps.…”

Inferring distributional shifts of epidemiologically important North and Central American sandflies from Pleistocene to future scenarios

“…Algorithm platforms from OpenModeller (de Souza et al ., ; http://openmodeller.sourceforge.net/), DesktopGARP (http://www.nhm.ku.edu.desktopgarp/), and MaxEnt (https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~schapire/maxent) were used. All platforms were programmed to randomly divide all occurrence points into training data for model calibration (75%) and test data for model testing (25%) (Anderson et al ., ). The minimum dataset used was for L. ylephiletor ( n = 17), for which 12 data points were used for calibration and five unique occurrence sites for model testing.…”