With increased infection rates coupled with reversed relative abundances since the 1940s, Anopheles marajoara has replaced An. darlingi as the major malaria vector around the city of Macapá (Amapá state, Brazil). In order to determine the population genetic structure and population history of this vector, adult biting females were collected from 5 sites in the Brazilian states of Pará and Amapá and a 766 base pair fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene was amplified and sequenced for 10 to 15 specimens per collection site. Ten of 766 sites were variable, of which nine were transition mutations and one was a transversion mutation. Eleven COI haplotypes were identified among 59 individuals sequenced. The most frequent haplotype (n=45) was found at all collection sites, and 8 haplotypes were observed at low frequency (n=1 each) and were unshared among sites. The geographic distribution of haplotypes and a starlike minimum spanning network indicate that An. marajoara has undergone a relatively recent demographic sweep caused by a range expansion from the north.
Species 1: Diptera Culicidae Anopheles marajoara
Keywords: Cytochrome Oxidase
Back to Student Competition Ten-Minute Papers, Section D. Medical and Veterinary Entomology
Back to Student Competition 10-minute Paper
Back to The 2002 ESA Annual Meeting and Exhibition