Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.
USDA-ARS Arthropod-Borne Animal Disease Research Unit, 1515 College Avenue, Manhattan, KS, 66502, USA.
Parasit Vectors. 2019 Jan 16;12(1):39. doi: 10.1186/s13071-018-3283-9.
Despite their importance as vectors of zoonotic parasites that can impact human and animal health, Culicoides species distribution across different habitat types is largely unknown. Here we document the community composition of Culicoides found in an urban environment including developed and natural sites in east central Texas, a region of high vector diversity due to subtropical climates, and report their infection status with haemoparasites.
A total of 251 individual Culicoides were collected from May to June 2016 representing ten Culicoides species, dominated by C. neopulicaris followed by C. crepuscularis. We deposited 63 sequences to GenBank among which 25 were the first deposition representative for six Culicoides species: C. arboricola (n = 1); C. nanus (n = 4); C. debilipalpis (n = 2); C. haematopotus (n = 14); C. edeni (n = 3); and C. hinmani (n = 1). We also record for the first time the presence of C. edeni in Texas, a species previously known to occur in the Bahamas, Florida and South Carolina. The urban environments with natural area (sites 2 and 4) had higher species richness than sites more densely populated or in a parking lot (sites 1 and 3) although a rarefaction analysis suggested at least two of these sites were not sampled sufficiently to characterize species richness. We detected a single C. crepuscularis positive for Onchocercidae gen. sp. DNA and another individual of the same species positive for Haemoproteus sacharovi DNA, yielding a 2.08% prevalence (n = 251) for both parasites in this species.
We extend the knowledge of the Culicoides spp. community in an urban environment of Texas, USA, and contribute to novel sequence data for these species. Additionally, the presence of parasite DNA (Onchocercidae gen. sp. and H. sacharovi) from C. crepuscularis suggests the potential for this species to be a vector of these parasites.
尽管作为可以影响人类和动物健康的人畜共患寄生虫载体的库蠓十分重要，但在不同生境类型中库蠓的分布情况在很大程度上仍是未知的。在这里，我们记录了在德克萨斯州中东部一个城市环境中发现的库蠓的群落组成，包括发达和自然区域，由于亚热带气候，该地区的媒介多样性很高，并报告了它们感染血液寄生虫的情况。
2016 年 5 月至 6 月共采集了 251 只个体库蠓，代表了 10 种库蠓，以新皮库蠓为主，其次是黄昏库蠓。我们在 GenBank 中存入了 63 条序列，其中 25 条序列是代表 6 种库蠓的首次序列：刺皮库蠓（n = 1）；微小库蠓（n = 4）；Debilipalpis 库蠓（n = 2）；Haematopotus 库蠓（n = 14）；Edeni 库蠓（n = 3）；和 Hinmani 库蠓（n = 1）。我们还首次记录了在德克萨斯州存在 Edeni 库蠓，该物种以前已知存在于巴哈马、佛罗里达州和南卡罗来纳州。具有自然区域的城市环境（站点 2 和 4）的物种丰富度高于人口密集或停车场（站点 1 和 3），尽管稀疏分析表明，这些站点中的至少两个站点没有被充分采样以描述物种丰富度。我们检测到一只 C. crepuscularis 对 Onchocercidae gen. sp. DNA 呈阳性，另一只同种库蠓对 Haemoproteus sacharovi DNA 呈阳性，这两种寄生虫在该物种中的流行率为 2.08%（n = 251）。
我们扩展了美国德克萨斯州城市环境中库蠓 spp. 群落的知识，并为这些物种提供了新的序列数据。此外，从 C. crepuscularis 中发现寄生虫 DNA（Onchocercidae gen. sp. 和 H. sacharovi）表明该物种有可能成为这些寄生虫的载体。
