Study On The Biological Characteristics Of Different Host Biotypes Of The Cat Flea

Ctenocephalides felis(C.felis)is an important disease vector globally.Both sexes of C.fells adults live on host blood.C.felis can be found in all the provinces except Qinghai,Tibet and Gansu in China.C.felis has a broad spectrum of host,including cats,dogs and Rattus norvegicus sometimes.The blood feeding of C.felis on host can lead to allergic dermatitis and anemia,and transmit multiple pathogens to host,such as Bartonella henselae,Rickettsia,virus and tapeworms.Therefore,a better understanding of C.felis is of great importance in disease control and prevention.This study is based on three laboratory strains of C.felis:rat-domesticated C.felis,mouse-domesticated C.felis and wild C.felis collected on house cats.We explored the influence of host blood feeding to different strains of C.felis,measuring the egg production,the development of larva,the formation of pupa,the emergence rate,the duration of each stage in the life cycle.We also investigated the eclosion time,the blood feeding duration,the blood feeding rate and the saturated blooding feeding.Meanwhile,the effects of ambient temperature to the lifespan of C.felis was also explored in this study.A comprehensive study of C.felis life cycle and the influences of host can provide a solid foundation for the future field survey of C.felis and the control and prevention of related diseases.Moreover,the study can also shed lights on the host-vector-pathogen triangle relationships by investigating the behavior change of C.felis on different hosts.The contents of the study can be summarized as following:1.The C.felis survived longer as the humidity increased under certain ambient temperatures,and had shorter lifespan as temperature rising under certain humidity.There was no lifespan difference on the temperature and humidity impact between rat-domesticated strain and mouse-domesticated strain,but showed high sensitive to ambient condition of high temperature and low humidity,which provide important clues for a better C.felis rearing in laboratory.C.felis of rat-domesticated stain and mouse-domesticated strain were fed on rats and mice respectively,and the change the host between the two strains.It showed the rat-domesticated strain fed on rats had the highest rate of blood feeding among the four strain-host combination groups with statistical significance(χ2=12.857,P=0.005).The groups of rat-domesticated strain fed on mice and mouse-domesticated strain fed on rats showed short duration of larva stage and pupa stage,low hatch rate,low pupa rate and low eclosion rate,compared with the groups fed on original host.2.There is no statistical difference on blood feeding rate between 1d,3d and 4d old C.felis.But it showed difference between 2d and 4d old C.felis:χ2=136.206,P<0.001 for rat-domesticated strain and χ2=219.709,P<0.001 for mouse-domesticated strain.The blood feeding rate and the saturated blooding feeding increased for both strains as feeding time increased.The host preference for C.felis collected on cat was:cat>rat=mouse;for rat-domesticated C.felis:rat>cat>mouse;for mouse-domesticated C.felis:mouse>cat>rat.By studying the biological characters of C.felis and its blood feeding preferences,conclusion can be drawn that the trains of C.felis have been experiencing host-differentiation,and have well adapted to the new hosts.It also implies the high vector efficacy of C.felis and the high risk of disease transmission.