Abstract
Increases in arbovirus outbreaks in Sudan are vectored by Aedes aegypti, raising the medical importance of this mosquito. We genotyped 12 microsatellite loci in four populations of Ae. aegypti from Sudan, two from the East and two from the West, and analyzed them together with a previously published database of 31 worldwide populations to infer population structure and investigate the demographic history of this species in Sudan. Our results revealed the presence of two genetically distinct subspecies of Ae. aegypti in Sudan. These are Ae. aegypti aegypti in Eastern Sudan and Ae. aegypti formosus in Western Sudan. Clustering analysis showed that mosquitoes from East Sudan are genetically homogeneous, while we found population substructure in West Sudan. In the global context our results indicate that Eastern Sudan populations are genetically closer to Asian and American populations, while Western Sudan populations are related to East and West African populations. Approximate Bayesian Computation Analysis supports a scenario in which Ae. aegypti entered Sudan in at least two independent occasions nearly 70–80 years ago. This study provides a baseline database that can be used to determine the likely origin of new introductions for this invasive species into Sudan. The presence of the two subspecies in the country should be consider when designing interventions, since they display different behaviors regarding epidemiologically relevant parameters, such as blood feeding preferences and ability to transmit disease.
Highlights
Aedes aegypti is an invasive mosquito found across the tropical and subtropical world; and the principal vector of worldwide epidemics of arboviruses such as dengue, yellow fever, Zika, and chikungunya virus (Mourya et al, 2001; Dubrulle et al, 2009; Marcondes and Ximenes, 2016)
The maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) showed that the percentage relatedness for Ae. aegypti ranged between 1.6% in Nyala population and 5.3% in Port Sudan population, indicating that the great majority of individual mosquitoes are not siblings (Supplementary Table S4)
In the four mosquito populations from Sudan, we identified 130 alleles distributed across 12 microsatellite loci, as shown in Supplementary Table S5
Summary
Aedes aegypti is an invasive mosquito found across the tropical and subtropical world; and the principal vector of worldwide epidemics of arboviruses such as dengue, yellow fever, Zika, and chikungunya virus (Mourya et al, 2001; Dubrulle et al, 2009; Marcondes and Ximenes, 2016). The ancestral form of the species in sub-Saharan Africa, Ae. aegypti formosus (Aaf), occurs in natural breeding habitats such as forests (Lounibos, 1981) and prefers non-human mammals for blood meals (McBride et al, 2014). These subspecies were originally described based largely on their geographic distribution, color, scaling patterns, and behavior. Populations are highly variable for scaling pattern (McClelland, 1974; Jupp et al, 1991), so morphology does not always reflect the major ecological distinction between the two subspecies (Powell and Tabachnick, 2013)
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