Abstract
The increasing spread of mosquito vectors has made mosquito-borne arboviral diseases a global threat to public health, leading to the urgent need for effective control of such populations. Methods based in the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia Hertig, 1936 are considered environmentally friendly, human-safe, and potentially cost-effective biocontrol strategies to control arboviral diseases. In order to minimize undesirable side effects, it is relevant to understand if Wolbachia ranges in the area and the diversity associated to native infections before implementation. With this purpose, we investigated Wolbachia infection status, diversity and prevalence in populations of Aedes albifasciatus (Macquart, 1838), Aedes fluviatilis (Lutz, 1904), and hybrids of the Culex pipiens (Linnaeus, 1758) complex from Argentina. Additionally, we preliminarily explored the influence of environmental temperature on the Wolbachia prevalence in Ae. fluviatilis. Aedes albifasciatus and Cx. pipiens complex samples were collected in the province of Buenos Aires, and Ae. fluviatilis in the province of Misiones. Aedes albifasciatus was uninfected and infections with strains wFlu and wPip were revealed in Ae. fluviatilis and hybrids of the Cx. pipiens complex, respectively. All strains were fixed or close to fixation and clustered within supergroup B. No effects of environmental temperature on Wolbachia prevalence of Ae. fluviatilis larvae were revealed, at least with the current design. These results provide valuable information on Wolbachia strains found in natural populations of mosquitoes from Argentina that might be used in heterologous infections in the future or must have taken into account when designing control strategies based on Wolbachia infection.