Beauveria bassiana infection alters reproductive parameters of the Chagas disease vector Triatoma infestans

FORLANI LUCAS; PEDRINI N.; JUÁREZ M. PATRICIA

Congreso; 45th Annual Meeting of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology. 2012; 2012

Chagas disease is the most important parasitic disease in Latin America, the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi is mainly transmitted through blood-feeding triatomine bugs. Current strategies to control Triatoma infestans, based on residual chemical insecticide application, are threatened by the emergence of pyrethroid-resistance. Among an alternative control tool, we previously showed that the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana could be used successfully in the field. In this work we studied the effect of fungal infection on percentage of ovipositing females, eggs laid per female, and egg fertility. The trials were carried out with virgin paired males and females. Immediately after copulation, randomly chosen females were exposed to fungi by contact with a fungal powder formulation (B. bassiana strain GHA, 2.6 x 108 conidia/cm2, 5 min). All parameters were measured daily in both treated and control females by 2 months. Reproductive capacity was significantly (p < 0.05) altered by fungal infection, only 57% of fungus-treated females were able to laid eggs, compared with 100% of controls. The number of eggs/female was significant (p < 0.05) reduced from 35.6 ± 5.4 (control) to 17.3 ± 3.0 (fungus-treated). There were no significant differences on egg fertility between both treatments. As part of a larger research project addressed to understand the complex interactions between entomopathogenic fungi and triatomines, these results provide useful information, that combined with other ongoing studies, will contribute to modeling the population dynamics of indoor T. infestans exposed to B. bassiana infection.