Changbunjong Tanasak, Weluwanarak Thekhawet, Laojun Sedthapong, Chaiphongpachara Tanawat
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.
Curr Res Parasitol Vector Borne Dis. 2025 Jan 13;7:100243. doi: 10.1016/j.crpvbd.2025.100243. eCollection 2025.
The species of , commonly known as horse flies, are remarkable ectoparasites capable of transmitting various pathogens to animals and humans. Given their role in disease transmission, accurate identification of horse fly species is critical but traditionally relies on morphological characteristics, requiring significant expertise and posing a high potential for error, especially with damaged specimens. To address the limitations of traditional morphological identification, this study highlights the importance of alternative techniques, including DNA barcoding and geometric morphometrics (GM). To enhance the reliability of species identification, DNA barcoding was employed to analyze 30 cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (1) gene sequences from 15 horse fly species, which were then compared with sequences in the GenBank and BOLD databases. Most 1 sequences aligned with existing data, with similarity percentages ranging from 96% to 100%. However, discrepancies were noted, including , misidentified as , and , whose sequences matched those of both and . Besides DNA barcoding, GM analyses were conducted to enhance species classification accuracy. Our GM analyses employed the landmark-based method for the entire wing and the outline-based method for the first submarginal cell. While shape-based GM analyses demonstrated high reliability, with adjusted total accuracy scores of 97% and 96%, size-based GM analyses yielded significantly lower accuracy, with scores of only 27% and 23%, respectively. These findings provide a foundation for refining horse fly species classification by integrating DNA barcoding and GM approaches, offering valuable advances in species identification and developing targeted control measures.
虻科的物种，通常被称为马蝇，是一类显著的体外寄生虫，能够将各种病原体传播给动物和人类。鉴于它们在疾病传播中的作用，准确鉴定马蝇物种至关重要，但传统上依赖形态特征，这需要专业知识，且存在较高的出错可能性，尤其是对于受损标本。为解决传统形态鉴定的局限性，本研究强调了包括DNA条形码技术和几何形态测量学（GM）在内的替代技术的重要性。为提高物种鉴定的可靠性，采用DNA条形码技术分析了15种马蝇的30条细胞色素氧化酶亚基1（COI）基因序列，然后将其与GenBank和BOLD数据库中的序列进行比较。大多数COI序列与现有数据相符，相似百分比在96%至100%之间。然而，也发现了一些差异，包括被误鉴定为的，以及其序列与和的序列均匹配的。除了DNA条形码技术，还进行了GM分析以提高物种分类的准确性。我们的GM分析对整个翅膀采用基于地标点的方法，对第一亚缘室采用基于轮廓的方法。基于形状的GM分析显示出高可靠性，调整后的总准确率分别为97%和96%，而基于大小的GM分析准确率则显著较低，分别仅为27%和23%。这些发现为通过整合DNA条形码技术和GM方法来完善马蝇物种分类奠定了基础，为物种鉴定和制定针对性控制措施提供了有价值的进展。
