The geographic distribution of argas ( persicargas ) miniatus and argas ( persicargas ) persicus (acari: argasidae) in america, with morphological and molecular diagnoses from brazil, chile and cuba

Abstract

High similarity of morphological traits has historically overshadowed the identities and distributions of poultry- associated soft ticks Argas (Persicargas) miniatus and Argas (Persicargas) persicus in America. In order to model the occurrence of both parasites in the continent, in the current study we performed morphological and molecular analyses to identify ticks collected in hen houses from Brazil and northern Chile. Combining these results with literature data, and the examination of Argas allotments deposited in the tick collections “Coleção Nacional de Carrapatos Danilo Gonçalves Saraiva” (Brazil), the “Coleção Acarológica do Instituto Butantan São Paulo” (Brazil), and the “Colección Zoológica de la Academia de Ciencia de Cuba” (Cuba), we present a critical list with the localities where A. (P.) miniatus and A. (P.) persicus have been reported in the American continent. Our results confirmed the presence of A. (P.) miniatus in Brazil and Cuba, and A. (P.) persicus in Chile, which in particular, constitutes the first molecularly confirmed report of the later species for South America. Although A. (P.) min- iatus and A. (P.) persicus have been documented in 21 American countries, the identity of some reports must still be considered as uncertain until detailed morphological and/or molecular studies are performed. When con- trasted to a Köppen-Geiger climate classification, A. (P.) miniatus predominantly occurs in equatorial and A. (P.) persicus in arid climates. However, until undetermined reports of both species are correctly identified, any conclusion on their geo-climatological occurrence throughout the American continent would be rather spec- ulative. 1. Introduction Ticks of the genus Argas Latreille (Argasidae) are haematophagous parasites in all their postembryonic stages and are currently re- presented by 61 species distributed in all the Zoogeographic Regions of the world (Guglielmone et al., 2010). Based on a morphological ap- proach of immature and mature stages, taxonomic summaries of this genus have proposed to divide most of its specific diversity in six de- fined subgenera, namely Argas, Carios, Chiropterargas, Microargas, Per- sicargas, Secretargas and an undefined subgenus referring to Argas bur- eschi Dryenski 1957 (Hoogstraal, 1985). Particularly, the Argas (Persicargas) group is composed by 16 ornithophilous species pheno- typically similar to each other (Hoogstraal, 1985; Estrada-Peña et al., 2003), and well adapted to parasitize domestic birds (Hoogstraal, 1956; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ttbdis.2017.10.009 Received 15 April 2017; Received in revised form 8 August 2017; Accepted 11 October 2017 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: munoz-leal@usp.br (S. Muñoz-Leal). Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases 9 (2018) 44–56 Available online 16 October 2017 1877-959X/ © 2017 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. T