Effect of blood-host plasticity on life history traits of tropical bed bugs species from selected areas of Tanzania
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Date
2024
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Publisher
Sokoine University of Agriculture
Abstract
Bed bug infestations are on the rise worldwide, turning them into a
bothersome pest with serious public health implications.
Furthermore, due to high resistance to insecticides, the control of
bed bugs is increasingly becoming a challenge. However, little is
known about their life history characteristics and microbial
community when they consume different blood meals.
Understanding their life history characteristics as well as bacterial
diversity and composition are necessary in informing their
epidemiology as well as management and control strategies.
Therefore, this study aimed to assess i) the effect of host‘s blood
meals on life history characteristics namely survival, fecundity
hatchability and development and (ii bacteria composition and
diversity. Bed bugs (cimex hemipterus) collected from the field were
reared on mice blood meal source in an insectary and thereafter
second filial generation was used in this study. Each cohort
contained ten (10) bed bugs with a 1:1 sex ratio and was replicated
three (3) times for each of the five different hosts. As such, a total of
30-bed bugs were blood-fed on each of the host species. The bed
bugs were allowed to feed on different host species for 10 minutes
every two days and mortality, fecundity, hatchability and
development were recorded, thereafter. A subset of one-bed bug per
group was selected to assess the bacteria composition. After DNA
extraction, metagenomic was used to sequence the microbiome of
each bed bug group. Human-fed bed bugs had higher survival rate
compared to those fed on mice, rats, guinea pigs and bats (in
decreasing order). Similarly, the fecundity of human-fed bed bugs
(248 eggs) was relatively higher than those fed on mice (212 eggs),
rats (118 eggs), guinea pigs (97 eggs), and bats (88 eggs). The
hatchability of eggs was proportionally higher in bed bugs fed on
humans (n=54, 91%) than those fed on mice (n=44, 73%), rat (n=40,
67%), guinea pig (n=40, 67%) and bats (n=39, 65%). Furthermore,
Human-fed bed bugs (nymph) survival was slightly observed to be
higher on human-fed bed bugs compared to those fed on mice, rats,
guinea pigs and bats ( in descending order) and development from one instar to another was frequently observed on bed bugs fed on
humans, followed by mice rats and bats-nymph was the least.
Hemoglobin concentrations from the host have demonstrated a
significant negative correlation with survival, fecundity and
hatchability. The metagenomic show that only phylum
Proteobacteria was dominant with 158011 sequences of microbial
composition, of which Wolbachia was the most dominant genera
with 136134 (86.15%) sequences, followed by Pectobacterium with
21708 (13.74%) sequences. The Wolbachia genus had three
strains: Wolbachia1, Wolbachia2, and Wolbachia3. These
accounted for 85.03% (134,367 sequences), 1.08% (1,701
sequences), and 0.04% (66 sequences) respectively of the
Wolbachia diversity in our samples. Interestingly, we only found two
pathogenic genera: Salmonella with 158 (0.1%) reads and Massilia
with 11 (0.01) reads. In conclusion, the results herein indicate that
blood-meal source affects the life-history traits of the bed bug
species Cimex hemipterus. Bed bugs fed on humans showed the
highest survival rate, fecundity, hatchability and development
relative to those fed on mice, rats and guinea pigs. Our findings
indicate that bed bugs feeding on humans have greater microbial
diversity compared to those feeding on guinea pigs, rats, mice, or
bats Furthermore, these results will potentially inform further studies
aimed to understand their epidemiology as well as the management
and control strategies.
Description
MSc. Dissertation
Keywords
Hemipterus, bed bug-host interaction, blood regimen, microbiome, Metagenomic