García-Sánchez Angela M, Trujillo Ignacio, Zurita Antonio, Cutillas Cristina
Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Seville, Profesor García González 2, 41012 Sevilla, Spain.
Animals (Basel). 2024 May 27;14(11):1582. doi: 10.3390/ani14111582.
Fleas (Siphonaptera) are ectoparasitic hematophagous insects responsible for causing bites and itchy skin conditions in both humans and animals. Furthermore, they can act as vectors of different pathogens of a wide variety of diseases worldwide, including bartonellosis, rickettsiosis, and bubonic plague. Accurate identification of fleas is necessary for the study of their epidemiology, prevention, and control. In addition to traditional morphological classification approaches and molecular biology techniques, geometric morphometrics is increasingly proving to be a useful complementary tool for discriminating between Siphonaptera taxa. With the objective of determining the capacity of this technique to identify and differentiate synanthropic fleas, a principal component analysis was carried out on populations of , , and collected in distinct regions of Andalusia (Spain). The analysis carried out on 81 male and female specimens revealed factorial maps that allowed the differentiation of the populations under study, with only partial overlaps that did not prevent their correct identification. Global size differences were also detected, with a slightly larger size in males and a bigger size in females. Therefore, the present study emphasizes the role of geometric morphometrics as a useful complementary technique in taxonomic studies of arthropods, especially in the case of flea specimens lacking representative morphological features.
跳蚤（蚤目）是外寄生性吸血昆虫，会导致人类和动物被叮咬并出现皮肤瘙痒症状。此外，它们可作为全球多种疾病的不同病原体的传播媒介，包括巴尔通体病、立克次氏体病和腺鼠疫。准确识别跳蚤对于研究其流行病学、预防和控制至关重要。除了传统的形态分类方法和分子生物学技术外，几何形态测量学越来越被证明是区分蚤目分类群的一种有用的补充工具。为了确定该技术识别和区分共栖跳蚤的能力，对在西班牙安达卢西亚不同地区采集的、和的种群进行了主成分分析。对81个雄性和雌性标本进行的分析揭示了因子图，这些因子图能够区分所研究的种群，仅有部分重叠，但这并不妨碍对它们的正确识别。还检测到了整体大小差异，雄性略大，雌性更大。因此，本研究强调了几何形态测量学作为节肢动物分类研究中一种有用的补充技术的作用，特别是在跳蚤标本缺乏代表性形态特征的情况下。
