Geographic differentiation of life table attributes among Anopheles sacharovi (Diptera: Culicidae) populations in Turkey

Biological data were compared under laboratory conditions for four local populations of the malaria vector, Anopheles sacharovi (Favre, 1903) in different ecological conditions at altitudes between 353 and 1,126 m in the Sanliurfa province of Turkey. No significant differences were found for complete development time from egg to adult among the populations and development times were not correlated with altitude. Based on cohorts of adults in each population, horizontal life tables were constructed. The average longevity was in the range of 15.19 +/- 0.69 to 21.86 +/- 1.04 days for adult females, which was longer than for adult males. No significant difference was found in life expectancy at emergence, e(x) when x = 1, between females and males in general (P > 0.05) in all populations. The net reproductive rate, R(o), was the highest for the SND population, while the rest of the populations showed very low reproductive rates independent of altitudinal effects. Populations that produced offspring earlier in life also produced more total female offspring, since the generation time, T(c), was negatively correlated with R(o) among the populations (r = -0.712, P < 0.05). Important parameters to explain the population growth, the intrinsic rate of increase, r(m) and birth rate, b, were found to be higher in the SND (0.13 and 0.30, respectively). Time required for the population to increase two-fold (doubling time, DT) was also significantly shorter in the SND population. Nineteen parameters in all life stages, both pre-adult and adult features of An. sacharovi, were used as physiological variables and these Operational Taxonomic Units were analyzed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Analyses confirmed results from the previous molecular studies that BRC and SND formed a distinct group from the other pair, PMK and GDK, along the first two principal components.