CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The Triatominae (Hemiptera, Reduviidae) are responsible for most part of the transmission of Chagas disease, a systemic chronic parasitic infection caused by the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi. In humans, in about 20% to 30% of the infected individuals, the disease results in severe cardiopathy or megaoesophagus/megacolon, disorders in many cases followed by death. This disease is also a complex zoonosis, with a large number of vertebrate reservoirs and insect vector species participating in the transmission, making disease eradication extremely difficult. Chagas disease continues to represent a health threat for an estimated 25-30 million people, living mostly in Latin America. We try to understand the mechanisms underlying crucial aspects of the ecology and evolution of both, the triatomine vectors and the parasite T. cruzi. Because of the number of triatomine species involved, the high variability in life history traits and habitats within and across triatomine species, we consider that the use of the concepts of the life-history theory will help us to understand these mechanisms. This understanding may be useful in optimizing control strategies of the insect vectors populations and predict their possible response to those control actions as well as climatic changes due to the global processes. The information found was extremely heterogeneous, however many references had the necessary data in final form to be directly transcribed and used (154 references). Other publications had data that had to be processed to provide the information needed (25 references). Additionally, in some instances the data was found to be defective, and corrections to the authors original values had to be carried out (13 references). Finally, life history data from 5 species in unpublished form that I had carried out experimentally but still not analyzed, was also included.

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