Vegetation Cover and Microspatial Distribution of Sand Flies (Diptera: Psychodidae) in an Endemic Locality for Cutaneous Leishmaniasis in Northern Argentina

CHANAMPA, MARIANA DEL M; GLEISER, RAQUEL M; HOYOS, CARLOS L; COPA, GRISELDA N; MANGUDO, CAROLINA; NASSER, JULIO R; GIL, JOSÉ F

JOURNAL OF MEDICAL ENTOMOLOGY

ENTOMOLOGICAL SOC AMER

Lugar: Lanham; Año: 2018

0022-2585

The fly fauna in Hipólito Yrigoyen, Argentina, a locality where cutaneousleishmaniasis cases occur, was surveyed with zones of higher abundance of sandflies correlated to vegetation cover estimated through normalized differencevegetation index (NDVI). Sand flies were collected with 10 CDC traps during sixnights, from December 2009 to January 2010. A map was built of expected sandflies abundance in which levels of NDVI were categorized. In total, 1,392Phlebotominae (Diptera: Psychodidae) specimens were collected, comprised of thefollowing species: Nyssomyia  neivai(Pinto 1926), Migonemyia migonei (França 1920), species of the cortelezziicomplex (Brèthes 1923), Evandromyia sallesi (Galvão & Coutinho 1940), andPsathyromyia shannoni (Dyar 1929). Positive correlations were found between theabundance of sand flies and the NDVI (P < 0.05) for buffer areas of <150m radii from the trap location points, i.e., the sand fly abundance was greaterwhere vegetation cover and density were greater. In this context, plant covershould be taken into account to prioritize surveillance and control areaswithin the program of sand flies control in northern Argentina.