Sand flies around Tona, an artificial water reservoir in Bucaramanga (Santander, Colombia): diversity, spatiotemporal frequency, and efficacy of four sampling methods

Characterizing the sand fly diversity is crucial for an effective design of control strategies for Leishmaniasis. We aimed to characterize the sand fly biodiversity around the Tona Reservoir (Santander, Colombia) and to compare the performance of four sampling methods. A sampling of insects was performed in 2017 in the most preserved and least preserved areas close to the Tona Reservoir, using Torre Vigia-UIS and HomeTrap-UIS, two sticky traps previously designed by our working group, CDC, and Bg-Sentinel traps. We collected 268 Phlebotominae specimens, most with CDC (47.8%) and Torre Vigia-UIS (30.2%) traps. Some specimens (47%) could not be determined because of their preservation status; these samples came mostly from the sticky traps. We found 16 sand fly morphospecies, of which 12 were determined to species level. Here, we report two new records for Santander: Pintomyia youngi (Feliciangeli and Murillo, 1987) and Lutzomyia ceferinoi (Ortiz and Alvarez, 1963). We also collected some confirmed vectors of Leishmania: Pi. youngi, Lutzomyia gomezi (Nitzulescu, 1931), and Lu. longipalpis (Lutz and Neiva, 1912). The highest diversity was collected in the most disturbed area (15 spp.), and in the rainy season (April, 12 spp.). Pintomyia youngi distribution was broad through the Tona Reservoir in all the sampled periods, and we suggest tracking it to infer leishmaniasis risk in the Tona Reservoir. Torre Vigia-UIS seems a valuable tool for vector control, but we do not recommend it for biodiversity studies.