Molecular Detection and Analysis of () spp. Diversity in Tabanidae (Diptera) Collected in Lithuania.

Trypanosomatids from the Tabanidae family have not been studied in Lithuania in any detail. In this study, a nested PCR amplifying the DNA fragment coding the SSU rRNA was used to determine the spp. prevalence and diversity in the Tabanidae family collected in Lithuania in 2018-2019. In total, 101 Tabanidae individuals were investigated from six areas in Lithuania, and 14 different species were identified. The overall positivity of spp. DNA in tabanids was 50.5% (51/101). was the most abundant species and yielded the highest prevalence of trypanosomatids (84.62%, 22/26), while showed a high prevalence as well, reaching 77.8% (14/18). In flies of some species ( and ), was detected for the first time. Nine different haplotypes were detected as being distributed in different tabanid species. Analysis showed that most sequences obtained during our study were identical or extremely close to two major subclades: TthI and TthII. Our data analysis suggests the presence of different genotypes in the same tabanid species, meaning that different lineages of could be more related to the vertebrate host and not the fly species. This is the first study of trypanosomatid parasites in tabanids from Lithuania, and our results are valuable in providing data on the diversity of these parasites in different Tabanidae species.