English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Background  Tsetse flies (Diptera:  Glossinidae ) transmit trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness in humans and nagana in livestock). Several studies have indicated that age, sex, site of capture, starvation and microbiome symbionts, among others, are important factors that influence trypanosome infection in tsetse flies. However, reasons for a higher infection rate in females than in males still largely remain unknown. Considering that tsetse species and sexes of larger body size are the most mobile and the most available to stationary baits, it was hypothesized in this study that the higher trypanosome prevalence in female than in male tsetse flies was a consequence of females being larger than males.    Methods  Black screen fly rounds and Epsilon traps were used to collect tsetse flies in eastern Zambia. Measurement of wing vein length and examination for presence of trypanosomes in the flies were carried out by microscopy. Principal component method was carried out to assess the potential of wing vein length as a predictor variable. The multilevel binary logistic regression method was applied on whole data, one-method data and one-sex data sets to evaluate the hypothesis.    Results  Data derived from a total of 2195  Glossina morsitans morsitans  were evaluated (1491 males and 704 females). The wing length variable contributed the highest variance percentage (39.2%) to the first principal component. The variable showed significant influence on prevalence of trypanosomes when the analysis was applied on the whole data set, with the log odds for the prevalence of trypanosomes significantly increasing by 0.1 ( P   =  0.032), per unit increase in wing length. Females had higher trypanosome prevalence rates than males, though not always significant. Furthermore, moving from females to males, wing length significantly reduced by 0.2 ( P   <  0.0001).    Conclusions  We conclude that wing length is an important predictor variable for trypanosome prevalence in  Glossina morsitans morsitans  and could partially explain the higher prevalence of trypanosomes in females than in males. However, reasonably representative population data are required for analysis—a serious challenge with the current tsetse sampling methods. Thus, analysis combining data from mobile and stationary methods that include both sexes' data could be useful to verify this hypothesis.    Graphical abstractSupplementary Information  The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13071-021-04907-y.

Effect of wing length on the prevalence of trypanosomes in Glossina morsitans morsitans in eastern Zambia