Malaria Vector Biology in Brazil: Genetics and Ecology

描述(申请人提供)：在巴西和哥伦比亚的疟疾流行地区，疟疾仍然是一个毁灭性的健康问题，每年报告的病例超过60万例。我们的生态和进化证据表明，按蚊载体之间潜在的生物学复杂性在新热带地区持续传播疟疾方面发挥着重要作用。我们有来自城市周边环境的令人信服的数据，即阿尔比塔西斯复合体的马拉若按蚊的重要性增加，甚至取代了主要的疟疾媒介An。巴西东北部亚马逊地区的Darlingi，虽然是一种。达林吉在边境和河边聚居地继续发挥重要作用。我们描述了一种新的疟疾媒介--阿尔比塔按蚊E，它来自巴西亚马孙北部的城市周边稀树草原。我们假设一个。Marajoara仅限于潮湿的森林和一种。白化病E仅限于稀树草原。我们最近发现了两个新物种，一个。Albitarsis F和An.Albitarsis G，来自亚马逊河流域巴西中部。这两个地区都在疟疾流行地区，而且都是假定的疟疾媒介。这两个都没有被描述出来。通过生物信息有效控制新热带疟疾病媒需要三个领域的贡献：快速和准确的病媒识别、种群遗传学和生态学。我们假设，疟疾传播的独特模式(边境与城市周边)往往与人为栖息地改变有关，这种改变不同地有利于具有不同生态需求的各种媒介物种。我们建议通过杂交实验和细胞学来评估新发现的几个物种的分类地位，并将改进我们的分子标记，以便更容易地区分白化复合体中的所有物种，以便进行快速现场鉴定。我们将检验我们关于栖息地分离的假设。Marajoara和An.达令吉通过选育地点进行表征。我们将评估AN的重要性。Marajoara，An.和An.通过评估异质栖息地的物种丰度、叮咬时间、感染和宿主选择，对哥伦比亚城市周边疟疾流行地区的达林吉进行了研究。在巴西，我们确定人口结构和历史在很大程度上是不同的。Darlingi和An.马拉霍拉。我们将使用横断面的数据来评估气候变量和公路与河流在每个物种的分布、种群结构和基因流动中的作用。项目简介：疟疾是巴西和哥伦比亚最重要的公共卫生问题之一。更好地了解蚊子媒介的生态和进化，这将有助于减少人与蚊子的接触和疟疾，疟疾对全球最贫穷的、主要是农村社区的影响不成比例。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Malaria remains a devastating health problem in endemic malaria regions of Brazil and Colombia with over 600,000 annual cases reported. Our ecological and evolutionary evidence indicate that the underlying biological complexity among anopheline vectors plays a significant role in continued malaria transmission in the Neotropics. We have convincing data from peri-urban settings that Anopheles marajoara of the Albitarsis Complex increases in importance and even replaces the primary malaria vector An. darlingi in NE Amazonian Brazil, although An. darlingi continues to be important in frontier and riverine settlements. We have described a new malaria vector, Anopheles albitarsis E, from peri-urban savanna in northern Amazonian Brazil. We hypothesize that An. marajoara is restricted to moist forest and An. albitarsis E is restricted to savanna. We recently detected two new species, An. albitarsis F, from NE Colombia, and An. albitarsis G, from Central Amazonian Brazil. Both are in endemic malaria areas, and both are putative malaria vectors. Neither has been characterized. Effective biologically-informed control of Neotropical malaria vectors requires contributions from three areas: fast and accurate vector identification, population genetics and ecology. We hypothesize that distinctive patterns of malaria transmission (frontier vs. peri-urban) are often related to anthropogenic habitat alterations that differentially favor various vector species that have distinct ecological requirements. We propose to evaluate the taxonomic status of several newly detected species with crossing experiments and cytology, and for rapid field identification, we will improve our molecular markers to more easily distinguish among all species in the Albitarsis Complex. We will test our hypothesis of habitat segregation between An. marajoara and An. darlingi by breeding site characterization. We will assess the importance of An. marajoara, An. albitarsis F, and An. darlingi in peri-urban endemic malaria localities in Colombia through evaluation of species abundance, biting time, infection and host selection in heterogeneous habitat sites. In Brazil, we determined that population structure and history differ substantially for An. darlingi and An. marajoara. We will use data from transects to evaluate the roles of climatic variables and highways vs. rivers in distribution, population structure and gene flow in each species. Project Narrative: Malaria is one of the most important public health problems in Brazil and Colombia. A better understanding of the ecology and evolution of the mosquito vectors, the objects of this study, will help to reduce human-mosquito contact and malaria, which disproportionately affects the poorest, mostly rural communities globally.