Geographic abundance patterns explained by niche centrality hypothesis in two Chagas disease vectors in Latin America
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Issue Date
2020-11-04Author
Altamiranda-Saavedra, Mariano
Osorio-Olvera, Luis
Yáñez-Arenas, Carlos
Marín-Ortiz, Juan Carlos
Parra-Henao, Gabriel
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
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© 2020 Altamiranda-Saavedra et al.
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Ecoepidemiological scenarios for Chagas disease transmission are complex, so vector control measures to decrease human–vector contact and prevent infection transmission are difficult to implement in all geographic contexts. This study assessed the geographic abundance patterns of two vector species of Chagas disease: Triatoma maculata (Erichson, 1848) and Rhodnius pallescens (Barber, 1932) in Latin America. We modeled their potential distribution using the maximum entropy algorithm implemented in Maxent and calculated distances to their niche centroid by fitting a minimum-volume ellipsoid. In addition, to determine which method would accurately explain geographic abundance patterns, we compared the correlation between population abundance and the distance to the ecological niche centroid (DNC) and between population abundance and Maxent environmental suitability. The potential distribution estimated for T. maculata showed that environmental suitability covers a large area, from Panama to Northern Brazil. R. pallescens showed a more restricted potential distribution, with environmental suitability covering mostly the coastal zone of Costa Rica and some areas in Nicaragua, Honduras, Belize and the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, northern Colombia, Acre, and Rondônia states in Brazil, as well as a small region of the western Brazilian Amazon. We found a negative slope in the relationship between population abundance and the DNC in both species. R. pallecens has a more extensive potential latitudinal range than previously reported, and the distribution model for T. maculata corroborates previous studies. In addition, population abundance increases according to the niche centroid proximity, indicating that population abundance is limited by the set of scenopoetic variables at coarser scales (non-interactive variables) used to determine the ecological niche. These findings might be used by public health agencies in Latin America to implement actions and support programs for disease prevention and vector control, identifying areas in which to expand entomological surveillance and maintain chemical control, in order to decrease human–vector contact.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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Citation
Altamiranda-Saavedra, M., Osorio-Olvera, L., Yáñez-Arenas, C., Marín-Ortiz, J. C., & Parra-Henao, G. (2020). Geographic abundance patterns explained by niche centrality hypothesis in two Chagas disease vectors in Latin America. PloS one, 15(11), e0241710. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0241710
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