Species diversity, habitat distribution, and blood meal analysis of Haematophagous Dipterans collected by CDC-UV light traps in the Dominican Republic

Abstract

Haematophagous insects cause major economic losses by both direct damage and the transmission of pathogens. However, the biting Diptera species in the Caribbean region have been poorly documented. During 2021, CDC downdraft suction traps with UV light were employed to assess both the species occurrence and blood meal sources across three different habitats in the Dominican Republic. Eighteen species of mosquitoes (n = 274), six species of Culicoides (n = 803), two black fly species (n = 2), and one species of muscid fly (n = 25) were identified at species-level by morphology and/or molecular phylogenetic approaches based on the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI).