Department of Public Health and Health Promotion, College of Allied Health Sciences, Suan Sunandha Ra-jabhat University, Samut Songkhram 75000, Thailand.
Department of Pre-Clinic and Applied Animal Science, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom 73170, Thailand; The Monitoring and Surveillance Center for Zoonotic Diseases in Wildlife and Exotic Animals (MoZWE), Faculty of Veterinary Science, Mahidol University, Nakhon Pathom 73170, Thailand.
Infect Genet Evol. 2023 Aug;112:105452. doi: 10.1016/j.meegid.2023.105452. Epub 2023 May 29.
Coquillettidia mosquitoes are important nuisance-biting pests and a vector of brugian filariasis in Thailand. However, comprehensive information about these mosquitoes remains unavailable such as molecular and morphometric differences among species. The lack of vector knowledge on Coquillettidia species could affect future disease control. This study aims to investigate differences in molecular variations based on mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) gene and wing geometric traits of three Coquillettidia species, namely Cq. crassipes, Cq. nigrosignata, and Cq. ochracea in Thailand. The results of molecular analyses revealed the differences among three Coquillettidia species. The genetic difference measure based on the Kimura two-parameter model among three Coquillettidia species showed low intraspecific distances (0%-3.05%) and large interspecific distances (10.10%-12.41%). The values of intra- and inter-genetic differences of three Coquillettidia species did not overlap which showed the existence of a barcoding gap indicating the efficiency of the identification based on the COI gene. As with molecular analysis, the landmark-based geometric morphometrics approach based on wing shape analysis indicated three distinct species groups which were supported by the high total performance score of cross-validated classification (97.16%). These results provide the first evidence of taxonomic signal based on molecular and wing geometric differences to support species identification and biological variations of Coquillettidia mosquitoes in Thailand for understanding these rare vector mosquitoes in depth and leading to effective further mosquito control.
库蚊是重要的滋扰性吸血害虫，也是泰国蟠尾丝虫病的传播媒介。然而，关于这些蚊子的综合信息仍然缺乏，例如种间的分子和形态差异。对库蚊种的媒介知识的缺乏可能会影响未来的疾病控制。本研究旨在调查基于线粒体细胞色素氧化酶亚基 I（COI）基因和翅膀几何特征的三种泰国库蚊，即 Cq. crassipes、Cq. nigrosignata 和 Cq. ochracea 的分子变异差异。分子分析的结果显示了三种库蚊之间的差异。三种库蚊之间基于 Kimura 双参数模型的遗传差异衡量标准显示种内距离较低（0%-3.05%），种间距离较大（10.10%-12.41%）。三种库蚊的种内和种间遗传差异值没有重叠，这表明存在条形码间隙，表明基于 COI 基因的鉴定效率。与分子分析一样，基于翅膀形状分析的基于地标几何形态计量学方法也表明存在三个不同的物种群，这得到了交叉验证分类的总性能评分（97.16%）的支持。这些结果为基于分子和翅膀几何差异的分类学信号提供了首次证据，支持泰国库蚊的物种鉴定和生物变异，以深入了解这些罕见的媒介蚊子，并导致有效的进一步蚊子控制。
