Department of Animal Parasitology, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), Seropédica, RJ, Brazil.
Postgraduate Program in Veterinary Sciences, UFRRJ, Seropédica, Brazil.
Parasit Vectors. 2022 Apr 21;15(1):136. doi: 10.1186/s13071-022-05250-6.
Information on the altitudinal distribution of the hard ticks Amblyomma aureolatum and Amblyomma ovale in Brazil is scarce and mainly limited to occasional records. In this study we report our evaluation of records on the altitudinal distribution of A. aureolatum and A. ovale collected from dogs and humans and directly from the environment (host-questing ticks), based on active or passive procedures. The collections were conducted in rural areas of municipalities in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil between 2013 and 2017. Active procedures consisted of dragging or flagging, visual examination of vegetation and removal of ticks present on the authors' clothing or on infested dogs. Overall, 222 ticks were collected. The altitudes at the collection sites ranged from 98 to 1220 m a.s.l. We noted a significant difference in the altitudinal distribution of A. aureolatum and A. ovale (Mann-Whitney U-test, U = 518.5, P < 0.001). The overlap of these two species occurred at altitudes of between 650 and 900 m a.s.l. The results indicated that the higher the altitude, the greater the probability for the occurrence of A. aureolatum and, conversely, the lower the likelihood for the occurrence of A. ovale. The findings of this study improve currrent knowledge on the bioecology of these tick species and have implications for studies on the epidemiology of spotted fever in Brazil.
巴西有关硬蜱 Amblyomma aureolatum 和 Amblyomma ovale 海拔分布的信息很少，主要限于偶然记录。在这项研究中，我们报告了我们对从狗和人类以及直接从环境（宿主搜索的蜱）中收集的 A. aureolatum 和 A. ovale 海拔分布记录的评估，这些记录是基于主动或被动程序。这些收集是在 2013 年至 2017 年期间在巴西里约热内卢州的各个城市的农村地区进行的。主动程序包括拖拽或标记、对植被进行目视检查以及清除作者衣服上或受感染狗身上的蜱。总共收集了 222 只蜱。收集地点的海拔高度从 98 米到 1220 米不等。我们注意到 A. aureolatum 和 A. ovale 的海拔分布存在显著差异（Mann-Whitney U 检验，U = 518.5，P < 0.001）。这两种物种的重叠发生在海拔 650 米至 900 米之间。结果表明，海拔越高，A. aureolatum 发生的可能性越大，而 A. ovale 发生的可能性越低。这项研究的结果提高了对这些蜱种生物生态学的认识，并对巴西斑点热流行病学研究具有重要意义。
