Spatial abundance and clustering of Culicoides (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) on a local scale

Particle and Fibre Toxicology

Peter Lind¹  Anders Stockmarr²  René Bødker¹  Carsten Kirkeby¹ 

[1]National Veterinary Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Bülowsvej 27, Frederiksberg C, DK-1870, Denmark

[2]Institute of Informatics and Mathematical Modelling, Technical University of Denmark, Asmussens Allé, DTU, Building 305, Lyngby, DK-2800, Denmark

关键词: Schmallenberg virus;    Bluetongue;    Spatial autocorrelation;    Abundance modeling;    Local scale abundance;    Spatial clustering;    Culicoides;   

Others  :  1228060
DOI  :  10.1186/1756-3305-6-43

 received in 2012-08-24, accepted in 2013-01-24,  发布年份 2013

【 摘 要 】

Background

Biting midges, Culicoides, of the Obsoletus group and the Pulicaris group have been involved in recent outbreaks of bluetongue virus and the former was also involved in the Schmallenberg virus outbreak in northern Europe.

Methods

For the first time, here we investigate the local abundance pattern of these two species groups in the field by intensive sampling with a grid of light traps on 16 catch nights. Neighboring trap catches can be spatially dependent on each other, hence we developed a conditional autoregressive (CAR) model framework to test a number of spatial and non-spatial covariates expected to affect Culicoides abundance.

Results

The distance to sheep penned in the corner of the study field significantly increased the abundance level up to 200 meters away from the sheep. Spatial clustering was found to be significant but could not be explained by any known factors, and cluster locations shifted between catch nights. No significant temporal autocorrelation was detected. CAR models for both species groups identified a significant positive impact of humidity and significant negative impacts of precipitation and wind turbulence. Temperature was also found to be significant with a peak at just below 16 degrees Celcius. Surprisingly, there was a significant positive impact of wind speed. The CAR model for the Pulicaris group also identified a significant attraction to the smaller groups of sheep placed in the field. Furthermore, a large number of spatial covariates which were incorrectly found to be significant in ordinary regression models were not significant in the CAR models. The 95% C.I. on the prediction estimates ranged from 20.4% to 304.8%, underlining the difficulties of predicting the abundance of Culicoides.

Conclusions

We found that significant spatial clusters of Culicoides moved around in a dynamic pattern varying between catch nights. This conforms with the modeling but was not explained by any of the tested covariates. The mean abundance within these clusters was up to 11 times higher for the Obsoletus group and 4 times higher for the Pulicaris group compared to the rest of the field.

【 授权许可】

   
2013 Kirkeby et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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