Nestedness patterns of sand fly (Diptera: Psychodidae) species in a neotropical semi-arid environment

We found that species composition was nested across a semi-arid landscape of Venezuela, where species of medical importance did not turnover across the sampled locations. Below a cluster analysis of dissimilarity (which increases along the axis) in species composition across the sampled locations. [...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta tropica 2016-01, Vol.153, p.7-13
Main Authors: Chaves, Luis Fernando, Añez, Nestor
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Beta diversity
Ecology
Insect Vectors
Leishmaniasis
Leishmaniasis, Visceral - epidemiology
Leishmaniasis, Visceral - transmission
Lutzomyia longipalpis
Nesting Behavior
Null model tests
Psychodidae - physiology
Species co-occurrence
Tropical Climate
Venezuela - epidemiology
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Summary:We found that species composition was nested across a semi-arid landscape of Venezuela, where species of medical importance did not turnover across the sampled locations. Below a cluster analysis of dissimilarity (which increases along the axis) in species composition across the sampled locations. [Display omitted] •Several sand fly species co-occur at endemic Leishmaniasis foci in the New World.•We use null model tests to study sand fly species co-occurrence in a semi-arid Landscape of Venezuela.•We found that species were aggregated and nested.•We found that species with medical importance did not turnover. A common pattern in neotropical Leishmania spp. transmission is the co-occurrence of several sand fly (SF) species at endemic foci. We collected 13 SF spp. by direct aspiration in natural resting places (NRP) and 10 SF spp. with Shannon traps (ST), totaling 15 spp. with both methods, at 6 locations within a semi-arid region with endemic visceral leishmaniasis transmission in Falcón State, Northwestern Venezuela. We used null model testing of species co-occurrence and nestedness metrics estimated with our field data to ask whether SF species composition was segregated/aggregated, and if aggregated whether there was nestedness, i.e., whether species composition across sampling locations could be described by ordered subsets of species from the most species rich location in a landscape. Results showed that SF species were aggregated (P
ISSN:0001-706X
1873-6254
DOI:10.1016/j.actatropica.2015.10.001