Blood-feeding patterns of horse flies in the French Pyrenees.

Horse flies can mechanically transmit Besnoitia besnoiti, the agent of bovine besnoitiosis. Although previously limited to enzootic areas, especially the French Pyrenees Mountains, bovine besnoitiosis is now considered a re-emerging disease in western Europe. To improve understanding of the role of horse flies as mechanical vectors, this study investigated their blood-feeding ecology in the eastern French Pyrenees, in two high-altitude summer pastures whose main domestic ungulates were cattle, and in a wildlife park with native fauna.

Phylogenetic analyses of mitochondrial and nuclear data in haematophagous flies support the paraphyly of the genus Stomoxys (Diptera: Muscidae).

The genus Stomoxys Geoffroy (Diptera; Muscidae) contains species of parasitic flies that are of medical and economic importance. We conducted a phylogenetic analysis including 10 representative species of the genus including multiple exemplars, together with the closely related genera Prostomoxys Zumpt, Haematobosca Bezzi, and Haematobia Lepeletier & Serville. Phylogenetic relationships were inferred using maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods from DNA fragments from the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI, 753bp) and cytochrome b (CytB, 587bp) mitochondrial genes, and the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2, 426bp).

Global population structure of the stable fly (Stomoxys calcitrans) inferred by mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data.

Stomoxys calcitrans (Diptera: Muscidae: Stomoxyini), a synanthropic fly with a worldwide distribution, is recognized to have an important medical and veterinary impact. We conducted a phylogeographic analysis based on several populations from five major zoogeographic regions of the world in order to analyse population genetic structure of S. calcitrans and to trace its global dispersion.

Landscape, population structure and genetic diversity of Stomoxys calcitrans.

To investigate whether different landscapes could affect genetic diversity and structure of the cosmopolitan diptera Stomoxys calcitrans, populations from Gabon and southern France were studied using dominant amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers. Gabon is characterized by a forested closed landscape, and southern France by an open Mediterranean landscape. The genetic diversity between Gabon and France populations did not differ significantly (P > 0.

[Ecology of stomoxyine fulies (Diptera: Muscidae) in Gabon. II. Blood meals analysis a nd epidemiologic consequences].

To determine the origin of stomoxyine fly bloodmeals (Diptera: Muscidae) in Gabon, 1,021 flies belonging to seven different species of Stomoxys were captured and dissected in the area of Makokou. In total, 798 were not blood-fed and 223 bloodmeals could be gathered on filter paper. The identification of the origin of these meals was made by amplification of mitochondrial Cytb gene, then heteroduplex technique by using the Gambian rat (Cricetomys gambianus) as driver.