Acta Tropica 148 (2015) 147–155 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Acta Tropica jo ur nal home p age: www.elsevier.com/locate/actatropica Temporal distribution and behaviour of sand flies (Diptera: Psychodidae) in a cutaneous leishmaniasis focus of the Kani Tribe settlements in the Western Ghats, India R. Srinivasan a , P. Jambulingam a,∗ , N. Pradeep Kumar a , M. Selvakumar a , B. Edwin a , T. Dilip Kumar b a Vector Control Research Centre (Indian Council of Medical Research), Pondicherry 605 006, India b Directorate of Health Services, Government of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram 695 035, Kerala, India a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 3 March 2015 Received in revised form 13 April 2015 Accepted 17 April 2015 Available online 25 April 2015 Keywords: Sand flies abundance Temporal distribution Kani tribe settlements Western Ghats India a b s t r a c t The temporal distribution of sand flies in relation to environmental factors was studied in the Kani tribe settlements located on the southernmost part of the Western Ghats, Kerala, India, between June 2012 and May 2013. This area is known for occurrence of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) cases. Employing hand-held aspirator, light trap and sticky-trap collection methods, a total of 7874 sand fly specimens, comprising 19 species was collected. Sergentomyia baghdadis was predominant species, followed by Phlebotomus argentipes. Sand fly abundance was significantly higher indoors ( 2 = 9241.8; p = 0.0001) than outdoors. Mean density of P. argentipes in human dwellings, cattle sheds and outdoors was 7.2 ± 2.9, 27.33 ± 21.1 and 0.64 ± 0.2 females/per man-hour (MHR), respectively. No sand fly species other than P. argentipes was obtained from cattle sheds. Although, sand fly populations were prevalent throughout the year, their abundance fluctuated with seasonal changes. Multiple regression analysis with backward elimina- tion indicated that the increase in precipitation and relative humidity contributed to a significant positive association with the increase in sand fly abundance, while the increase in temperature showed no associ- ation. Fully engorged female sand flies tested for blood meal source showed multiple host-blood feeding. Analysis of resting populations of sand flies collected from human shelters indicated that the popula- tions were found maximum on interior walls at 6–8 and >8 ft height, including ceiling during summer (F = 83.7, df = 6, p = 0.001) and at the lower half of the wall at 0 and 0–2 ft height, during monsoon season (F = 41.4, df = 6, p = 0.001). In cooler months, no preference to any height level (F = 1.67, df = 6, p = 0.2) was observed. Proportion of females sand flies with Sella’s classification of abdominal stages, namely full-fed, half-gravid and gravid females did not vary significantly (t = 1.98, p = 0.13827) indoors, confirming their endophilic behaviour. Risk of CL transmission in these tribal settlements is discussed. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Leishmaniases are complex infectious diseases caused by the parasites of the genus Leishmania Ross (Kinetoplastida: Try- panosomatidae) and transmitted by Phlebotomine sand fly species (Diptera: Psychodidae). Of the approximately known 800 species of sand flies, 98 have been implicated in the transmission of 40 different species of Leishmania parasites (Maroli et al., 2013). Leish- maniases are found in 98 countries, both in tropical and subtropical regions. Today, more than 350 million people are at risk of contract- ing leishmaniases, an estimated 12 million cases exist worldwide, ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 0413 2272396/97/48; fax: +91 0413 2272041. E-mail address: pcsaja@gmail.com (P. Jambulingam). with an estimated number of 1.5–2 million new cases occurring annually; of which 1–1.5 million cases are cutaneous leishmania- sis (CL) and 0.5 million cases are visceral leishmaniasis (VL) (WHO, 2010). These diseases are distributed in widely scattered foci in many countries (Alvar et al., 2012), as the climatic conditions with high humidity and rainfall coupled with optimum temperature and environmental factors such as the nature of landform, land usage pattern, soil moisture and soil pH facilitate sand fly propagation, survival and abundance (Valderrama et al., 2011; Srinivasan et al., 2013). In India distribution of sand flies has been reported from several areas of northern region (Dhanda and Modi, 1971; Kumar et al., 1992; Sharma et al., 2005), eastern coastal region (Ilango et al., 1994; Srinivasan and Jambulingam, 2010, 2011; Srinivasan et al., 2013, 2014) and western coastal region (Kaul, 1993; Kaul and Jain, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actatropica.2015.04.015 0001-706X/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.