engleski

Horse flies (Diptera: Tabanidae) of the Danube floodplain in the Baranja region (Croatia) and their response to the different natural and synthetic attractants

The family Tabanidae comprises some 4, 000 species, and includes some of the largest biting flies, commonly called horse flies, deer flies, and clegs. Horse flies are known worldwide as important mechanical vectors of virus, bacteria, protozoans, and helminths, which cause diseases in wild and domestic animals. Adult females of horse flies are considered to be major pests of ungulates world-wide and they have been described as the mechanical vectors of over 35 livestock pathogens, including equine infectious anemia virus, Anaplasma marginale, Trypanosoma evansi and Trypanosoma vivax. In fact, horse flies are considered to be the primary insect vectors of agents that are routinely transmitted between animals by blood. Despite the fact that studies on vector ecology are essential to understand, predict and control insect borne diseases, relatively few studies have been conducted on horse flies ecology in forest habitats in Europe. The climate in Croatia is conducive for the production of high populations of horse flies during spring and summer months, especially in wetlands and flooded habitats. Horse flies fauna in Croatia is well studied with 78 registered species, and in the Danube floodplain in Baranja 26 species are recorded. The main topic of the doctoral thesis is the impact of the ecological factors, particularly regular floods and vegetation cover, on the development of horse fly populations in the Danube river floodplain. Collections were made in the Croatian part of Baranja in the four different forest communities: common oak wood and dyers green weed (as. Genisto elatae-Quercetum roboris), common oak and hornbeam (as. Carpino betuli-Quercetum roboris), white willow and black poplar (as. Salici-Populetum nigrae), as well as white willow (as. Galio-Salicetum albae) forests in the flooded area. Furthermore, application of synthetic and natural attractants for the control of horse flies populations, monitoring and research was also studied in the same area. Tabanids were caught by canopy traps baited with aged cow, horse, sheep, pig, donkey and fresh human urine. In the experiments with syntetic attractants, canopy traps were baited with 4-methylphenol, 3-isopropylphenol, naphthalene, 1-octen-3-ol, lactic acid and the mixture of three chemicals (1-octen-3-ol, acetone, ammonia solution in the proportions 5:3:2). Better knowledge of the efficiency of the different attractants would give us practical methods in the reduction of possible financial losses or lower milk productivity due to the harassment of livestock and/or transfer of diseases as a result of horse fly feeding on domesticated animal blood.

Horse flies; Tabanidae; Baranja; Croatia

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