Impact of vector control on effective population sizes; empirical evidence for a control-based genetic bottleneck in the tsetse fly Glossina fuscipes

Abstract

AbstractWe investigated genetic variation at 37 newly-developed microsatellite loci in populations of the tsetse fly Glossina fuscipes fuscipes captured from the upper and lower reaches of a single hydrographical network within an endemic Human African Trypanosomiasis focus. Our primary aim was to assess the impact of vector control using insecticide-treated baits (Tiny Targets) on genetic structure. We initially used STRUCTURE to delineate geographical boundaries of two stable ‘ancestral’ reference populations without any history of vector control but marked for either vector control (‘intervention’) or no control (‘non-intervention’). We then used the ADMIXTURE model to assess genetic divergence in temporal populations collected after vector control implementation. We applied the Linkage Disequilibrium method to explicitly measure spatial and temporal changes in effective population size (Ne). We observed a significant reduction in Ne coincident with vector control, whereas Ne remained stable in the non-intervention area. Our empirical findings show how classical population genetics approaches detected within a short period of time, a significant genetic bottleneck associated with vector control, and opens up the possibility of using routine genomic surveillance. We have also generated a resource of new genetic markers for studies on the population genetics of tsetse at finer-scale resolution.FundingThis work was funded through a Wellcome Trust Master’s Fellowship in Public Health and Tropical Medicine awarded to Allan Muhwezi (103268/Z/13/Z).