Parasite × vector relationship in Chagas disease: does Trypanosoma cruzi (Chagas, 1909) infection affect the spermatogenesis of Triatoma infestans (Klug, 1834)?

The parasite-vector interaction of Chagas disease is still poorly understood and the understanding of this relationship can help in the development of new strategies to control Trypanosoma cruzi transmission, which is the etiological agent of this disease. Considering the need to know if T. cruzi can cause some pathology in the reproductive system of the Chagas disease vectors, we investigated the spermatogenesis of Triatoma infestans infected by T. cruzi through histological and cytogenetic analysis. Trypanosoma cruzi Bolivia strain infection was not pathogenic for the reproductive system of T. infestans, because all the analyzed males had normal spermatogenesis, with all phases (spermatocytogenesis, meiosis and spermiogenesis) happening without any change. Thus, we demonstrated that the presence of T. cruzi Bolivia strain does not have influence in the spermatogenesis of T. infestans and we suggest that the influences on reproductive system observed for other species were a result of the action of the parasite on gametogenesis of females.

Checklist and description of three new chromatic patterns of Pachycoris torridus (Scopoli, 1772) (Hemiptera: Scutelleridae)

In the present paper, 27 chromatic patterns of the specie Pachycoris torridus (Scopoli, 1772) were grouped and three new patterns are described. Because of this high phenotypic polymorphism, P. torridus already been registered eight times as a new specie, highlighting the importance of the application of different tools to assist in taxonomy of this hemipterous of economic importance.

No presente artigo, 27 padro˜ es croma´ ticos da espe´cie Pachycoris torridus (Scopoli, 1772) sa˜o agrupados e treˆs novos padro˜ es sa˜o descritos. Devido a esse grande polimorfismo fenoti´pico, P. torridus ja´ foi registrado oito vezes como espe´cie nova, o que ressalta a importaˆncia da aplicac¸a˜o de diferentes ferramentas para auxiliar na taxonomia desse hemi´ptero de importaˆncia econoˆmica.