Population structure of newly established Anopheles funestus populations in the Senegal River basin using paracentric chromosomal inversions.

Anopheles funestus is one of the major vectors of malaria in sub-saharan Africa. Because of several cycles of recurrent drought events that have occurred in the sahelian zone, this species had disappeared from this area since the 1970s following a disappearance of its specific breeding sites. Its comeback was, however, recently observed particularly in the Senegal River basin following the implementation of two dams. Because the implementation of hydro-agricultural and irrigation settings are suspected to be involved in the reestablishment of An. funestus populations and that paracentric inversions are involved in the adaptation to various environments, the present study was undertaken in 3 villages of the Senegal River basin (Keur Mbaye, Mbilor and Gankette Balla), (i) to study the chromosomal polymorphism of the newly established An. funestus populations in the Senegal River basin using paracentic inversions from ovarian nurse cells and (ii) their relationship with other populations of this species located in different environmental contexts (Dielmo in sudanian zone, Sankagne and Kouvar in northern sudano-guinean zone and Ngari in southern sudano-guinean zone) in order to know the key factors leading to their reestablishment in this area. Our results showed that the newly established An. funestus populations' exhibit low level of chromosomal polymorphism with two chromosomal inversions (the fixed 2Rs and the polymorphic 3La) out of the 9 paracentric inversions described up to now in An. funestus in Senegal. At population level, no significant deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was observed for almost all inversions. Furthermore, significant genetic differentiation was revealed between the populations from the Senegal River basin and those from the sudanian and southern sudano-guinean zones and was not linked to geographical distance. However, the populations from the Senegal River basin were close or slightly differentiated to those from the northern sudano-guinean zone located within or near irrigated cultures. These observations suggest that the hydro-agricultural settings following the implementation of dams in the Senegal River were probably responsible to the comeback and the reestablishment of the An. funestus populations in this zone.