Sand @entity238 fauna (Diptera, pcychodidae, phlebotominae) in different XXXX areas of ecuador, surveyed using a newly named mini-shannon trap.

@entity1 @entity232 @entity238
To study the sand @entity238 fauna, surveys were performed at four different @entity232 sites in Ecuador from February 2013 to April 2014. A modified and simplified version of the conventional Shannon trap was named "mini-Shannon trap" and put to multiple uses at the different study sites in limited, forested and narrow spaces. The mini-Shannon, CDC light trap and protected @entity1 landing method were employed for sand @entity238 collection. The species identification of sand flies was performed mainly based on the morphology of spermathecae and cibarium, after dissection of fresh samples. In this study, therefore, only female samples were used for analysis. A total of 1,480 female sand flies belonging to 25 Lutzomyia species were collected. The number of female sand flies collected was 417 (28.2%) using the mini-Shannon trap, 259 (17.5%) using the CDC light trap and 804 (54.3%) by @entity1 landing. The total number of sand flies per trap collected by the different methods was markedly affected by the study site, probably because of the various composition of species at each locality. Furthermore, as an additional study, the attraction of sand flies to mini-Shannon traps powered with LED white-light and LED black-light was investigated preliminarily, together with the CDC light trap and @entity1 landing. As a result, a total of 426 sand flies of nine Lutzomyia species, including seven @entity1 -biting and two non-biting species, were collected during three capture trials in May and June 2014 in an area endemic for @entity232 (La Ventura). The black-light proved relatively superior to the white-light with regard to capture numbers, but no significant statistical difference was observed between the two traps.
