Development and validation of software that quantifies the larval mortality of Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus cattle tick

Abstract

Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus is controlled almost exclusively using synthetic acaricides, and reports of resistant populations have been described worldwide. Several time-consuming and laborious toxicological in vitro tests have been used to diagnose acaricidal resistance, especially those that require differential counting of live and dead larvae. Larval mortality is currently done manually and subjectively, which can limit the performance of a large number of tests and comparing results between different laboratories. The present study aimed to develop and validate a new automatic counting method to evaluate tick larval mortality. A software for differentiation of live and dead larvae was developed using different steps: obtaining videos; image segmentation using the firefly algorithm; detection of larvae with the fast radial symmetry transform technique (FRST); and tracking of the larvae at a given time. Larval immersion tests with ivermectin, cypermethrin, and fipronil were performed to validate the developed software. The larval mortality evaluation was performed by (1) recording for 60 s for each package and (2) manual counts of the same sample using three different analysts, each responsible for counting one replicate of each test. All videos obtained were copied and cut at 60, 40, and 20 s for later analysis in the counting software. The median lethal doses (LD50) of the different compounds in each test were calculated for each method (automatic and manual) for different video times. There was no statistical difference in LD50 between manual and automatic count techniques for ivermectin and fipronil. The LD50 of cypermethrin calculated with manual evaluation was up to 2.2 times lower than that of automatic evaluation. The acquisition time of the videos was 2.9–4.4 times faster than the manual evaluation. The average processing time for each video was 5.73 min, regardless of their duration. Thus, the method developed for automatic counting of tick larvae was validated, and although it still has points to be optimized, it can be considered a viable alternative for determining the percentage of tick larvae mortality and could be applied to toxicological in vitro tests with acaricides, assisting in the diagnosis of resistant tick populations and studies of novel acaricide development.