Analysis of the tick communities associated to domestic mammals in rural areas of the Yungas montane forest from Argentina

COPA, GRISELDA N.; FLORES, FERNANDO S.; TARRAGONA, EVELINA L.; LAMATTINA, DANIELA; SEBASTIAN, PATRICK S.; GIL, JOSÈ F.; MANGOLD, ATILIO J.; VENZAL, JOSÉ M.; NAVA, SANTIAGO

Veterinary Parasitology: Regional Studies and Reports

Elsiever

Lugar: Ámsterdam; Año: 2023 vol. 39

2405-9390

The aim of this work was to describe the tick community associated to domestic mammals in rural areas from theYungas lower montane forest of Argentina. The circulation of tick-borne pathogens was also analyzed. Samples ofticks parasitizing cattle, horses, sheep and dogs were carried out in different seasons, and questing ticks werecollected from vegetation and analyzed to detect the presence of Rickettsia, Ehrlichia, Borrelia and Babesia by abattery of different PCRs. The structure of the tick communities was analyzed through the Chao1 species richnessestimator, the Shannon–Wiener index and the Horn index of community similarity. Eight tick species werecollected in the study area: Amblyomma sculptum, Rhipicephalus microplus, Amblyomma hadanii, Dermacentornitens, Amblyomma ovale, Haemaphysalis juxtakochi, Ixodes pararicinus and Rhipicephalus sanguineus sensu stricto.However, A. sculptum was by far the dominant species in the tick assemblages analyzed, and this was reflected inthe low diversity values obtained. Dermacentor nitens, A. sculptum and R. microplus were the three species associatedto horses. The predominance of A. sculptum was also observed in the tick samples obtained from dogs, evenon two tick species, namely A. ovale and R. sanguineus s.s., which have dogs as the principal domestic host.Rhipicephalus microplus and A. sculptum were the most abundant ticks on cattle, while few specimens ofI. pararicinus, A. hadanii and D. nitens were found on bovines. Dermacentor nitens ticks were found to be infectedwith B. caballi, which indicate the circulation of this pathogen of horses in the Yungas area. The detection of astrain of Borrelia sp. belonging to the B. burgdorferi s.l. complex in I. pararicinus is consistent with previousfindings made in Argentina, but the public health relevance of this vector-microorganism association is far frombeing similar to that occurs in the northern hemisphere because there are practically no records of these tickspecies parasitizing humans in South America. The tick community of rural areas of the Yungas lower montaneforest is composed by species which are potential vectors of pathogenic microorganism with veterinary andpublic health importance, circulating in a human-wildlife-livestock interface.