Abstract
Yellow Fever (YF) is an infectious disease caused by Yellow Fever Virus (YFV) and carried by mosquitoes of the Culicidae family. In Brazil and other South American countries, it has been restricted to the wild cycle, with the last urban epidemic in Brazil occurred in 1928, associated with the Aedes aegypti. In South and Southeastern Brazil, the species Haemagogus leucocelaenus has been implicated as the main vector of wild Yellow Fever, since individuals of this species have often been found naturally infected by YFV in epizootic areas. Currently, Brazil suffers from its worst outbreak of Yellow Fever in the last decades, with several records of epizootics and human cases in several regions of the country, including the State of São Paulo. The fragmentation of the landscape, as a function of human activity, is one of the main causes of loss of biodiversity and among others; we can highlight its contribution in changing the epidemiological patterns of diseases, mainly due to changes in levels of interactions, abundance and movement of hosts, vectors and people. Thus, understanding its effect on vector populations implicated in the transmission of Yellow Fever, such as the Hg. leucocelaenus, may mean a better understanding of circulation pattern of the YFV in areas with historical of epizootics, aiding in more control measures effective. Therefore, the present project aims to investigate the influence of the landscape on the population structure of Hg. leucocelaenus mosquitoes in areas with historical of Yellow Fever epizootics in non-human primates, located in the state of São Paulo. For this, single nucleotide polymorphism markers will be used to characterize the population structure of Hg. leucocelaenus. Mosquitoes will be collected in areas with recent and non-recent historical of Yellow Fever epizootics in non-human primates. For each collection site, we intend to classify and measure landscape metrics that will be used to investigate possible associations with genotypic variations in the vector populations. We expected that with this study it would be possible to identify how changes in the landscape can influence their population structure and gene flow, since such a process may reflect on the circulation pattern of the virus in the environment. (AU)
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