ArticlePLoS neglected tropical diseases2019
Enduring extreme climate: Effects of severe drought on Triatoma brasiliensis populations in wild and man-made habitats of the Caatinga.
Article in PLoS neglected tropical diseases, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Bibliometric Analysis of the Evolution and Distribution of Research on Analytical Methods for Climate-Sensitive Infectious Diseases in Latin America and the Caribbean.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Review
- The impact of temperature on canine Chagas disease transmission risk: A modeling study.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- MaxEnt modeling and risk evaluation of chagas disease vectors in the domestic cycle of Hidalgo, Mexico.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- The connection between Trypanosoma cruzi transmission cycles by Triatoma brasiliensis brasiliensis: A threat to human health in an area susceptible to desertification in the Seridó, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Article
- Assessing the effects of disasters and their aftermath on pregnancy and infant outcomes: A conceptual model.International journal of disaster risk reduction : IJDRR · 2021Article
- Machine-learning model led design to experimentally test species thermal limits: The case of kissing bugs (Triatominae).PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundTriatoma brasiliensis, a triatomine-bug vector of Chagas disease, evolved in the semiarid Caatinga, where it occupies rocky outcrops, shrubby cacti, and human dwellings. Dwellings and rocks are considered high-quality microhabitats for this saxicolous species, whereas cacti probably represent secondary, lower-quality microhabitats. This 'microhabitat-quality hierarchy' hypothesis predicts that T. brasiliensis populations occupying dwellings or rocks should endure harsh environmental conditions better than their cactus-living relatives. METHODS/
findingsWe tested this prediction by comparing T. brasiliensis infestation (proportion of microhabitats with bugs), density (bugs per microhabitat), and crowding (bugs per infested microhabitat) in dwellings, rocks, and cacti sampled before and during the extreme drought that ravaged the Caatinga in 2012-2016. We used random-intercepts generalized linear mixed models to account for microhabitat spatial clustering and for variations in bug-catch effort; we assessed model performance and computed model-averaged effect estimates using Akaike's information criterion. Pre-drought infestation was similar across microhabitat types; during the drought, infestation remained stable in dwellings and rocks but dropped in cacti. Pre-drought bug density declined from dwellings to rocks to cacti; an additional decline associated with the drought was largely comparable across microhabitats, albeit perhaps somewhat larger in cacti. Finally, pre-drought bug crowding was higher in dwellings than in rocks or cacti and changed little during the drought-possibly with a downward trend in dwellings and an upward trend in cacti.
conclusionsTriatoma brasiliensis populations fared better in dwellings and rocks than in cacti during extreme drought. Estimates of microhabitat and drought effects on infestation, density, and crowding suggest that only a few cacti (versus many rocks and dwellings) represent good-quality habitat under such extremely harsh conditions. Our findings provide empirical support to the microhabitat-quality hierarchy hypothesis, and imply that T. brasiliensis can endure extreme climate by exploiting high-quality microhabitats, whether wild or man-made, in the semiarid Caatinga.
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