Abstract
The present study evaluated the reproductive compatibility of the crosses between adult ticks of the following three geographically different populations of Amblyomma cajennense: State of São Paulo (SP), southeastern Brazil; State of Rondônia (RO), northern Brazil; and Colombia (CO). In addition, crosses between A. cajennense ticks from Argentina (AR) and SP ticks were also performed. The Argentinean population (AR) was compatible with SP because their crosses resulted in high % egg hatching (mean values ranging from 71.5 to 93.5%), similarly to all homologous (intrapopulational) crosses. In contrast, the tick populations SP, RO, and CO were shown to be incompatible with each other, since their heterologous (interpopulational) crosses always resulted in very low % egg hatching (range: 0–5%). The F1 larval offspring derived from some of these females that yielded 5% egg hatching were reared until the F1 adult stage. In all cases, only adult females molted from engorged nymphs. These F1 females were likely to be a product of thelytokous parthenogenesis of the SP, RO, and CO females that were used in the heterologous crosses. Reproductive incompatibility is not expected to occur between different populations of a single species. Thus, our results suggest that the taxon A. cajennense might be represented by a complex of different species, whereas SP and AR ticks might represent a single species. Further populational genetic studies, coupled with extensive morphological analyses, are needed to clarify and determine a possible complex of valid species that might have been classified under the taxon A. cajennense.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Atilio Mangold, Mariano Mastropaolo, and Santiago Nava (INTA Rafaela, Argentina) for providing field-collected AR ticks, to Gustavo Valbuena and Efrain Benavides (Colombia) for providing field-collected CO ticks, and to Laboratório Biovet (Brazil), for providing naïve rabbits. This work was supported by Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq).
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Labruna, M.B., Soares, J.F., Martins, T.F. et al. Cross-mating experiments with geographically different populations of Amblyomma cajennense (Acari: Ixodidae). Exp Appl Acarol 54, 41–49 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10493-011-9428-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10493-011-9428-6