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Assessing Community Dynamics And Colonization Patterns Of Tritatoma Dimidiata And Other Biotic Factors Associated With Chagas Disease Prevalence In Central America, Lucia Consuelo Orantes
Assessing Community Dynamics And Colonization Patterns Of Tritatoma Dimidiata And Other Biotic Factors Associated With Chagas Disease Prevalence In Central America, Lucia Consuelo Orantes
Graduate College Dissertations and Theses
Chagas disease is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi and transmitted by multiple triatomine vectors across the Americas. In Central America, the predominant vector is Triatoma dimidiata, a highly adaptable and genetically diverse Hemiptera. In this research, we used a novel reduced-representation DNA sequencing approach to discover community dynamics among multiple biotic factors associated with Chagas disease in Central America, and assess the infestation patterns of T. dimidiata after seasonal and chemical disturbances in Jutiapa, Guatemala. For our first study, we used a hierarchical sampling design to obtain multi-species DNA data found in the abdomens of 32 T. dimidiata …