MORPHOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR IDENTIFICATION OF TABANIDS IN WESTERN GHATS OF KARNATAKA AND EVALUATION OF FLY TRAPS
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Date
2021-01-01
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KARNATAKA VETERINARY, ANIMAL AND FISHERIES SCIENCES UNIVERSITY, BIDAR
Abstract
Tabanids are haematophagous flies of medical and veterinary importance. The
study was conducted from March 2019 to February 2020 to record the prevalence of flies
in Western Ghats of Belagavi division Karnataka by both morphological and molecular
methods of identification. A total of 912 flies belong to twenty species were found to be
prevalent viz., T. indianus, T. biannularis, T. diversifrons, T. sexcinctus, T. gertrudae, T.
triceps, T. dorsilinea, T. rubidus, T. jucundus, T. auristriatus, T. tenebrosus, H. montana,
H. javana, H. longipennis, H. brevis, H. albimedia, C. dispar, C. pellucidus, A. virgo and
P. taprobanes. T. jucundus was reported for the first time from Karnataka. The season wise
prevalence revealed highest number of species were prevalent during rainy season (17
species) followed by summer (9 species) and winter (4 species). The most diverse genus
was Tabanus with 11 species followed by Haematopota with five species, Chrysops with
two species and Atylotus and Philoliche with one species each. The morphometric
characters of 20 species of tabanids with 10 flies of each species was studied and grouped
into large, medium and small flies. The DNA barcoding of twenty different flies was
carried out targeting COI a 658 bp amplicon. The sequence of these species after BLAST
analysis confirmed the species which was identified based on morphology. The sequence
of these species submitted to GenBank and barcode was generated. Phylogenetic analysis
of 20 species was carried out and highest and lowest interspecific divergence was found
between Philoliche taprobanes and Chrysops dispar (18%); and Tabanus tenebrosus and
Tabanus indianus (1%), respectively. A total of 9974 tabanid and Stomoxys flies belonging
to eight species were caught by Nzi, modified Manning and H-traps. Nzi trap was superior
to the modified Manning and H-traps in collecting tabanid flies. Approximately three times
more flies caught by traps baited with fermented (aged) cow urine than unbaited traps. The
duration of the olfactory attractive property of fermented (aged) cow urine was tested and
it was found to be effective for 12 days.