Fig 1.
A: Picture showing a fifth instar nymph entering into the box. B: Scheme showing the inner box design; the upper side of the racks and the internal sides of the box were covered by the exuviae suspension (brown); the fungal formulation (white) was applied over the exuviae-painted rack surfaces.
Fig 2.
Life cycle diagram of the T. infestans matrix population model.
Asterisks identify infected individuals. N1—N5 refers to nymph stage 1 through stage 5 of T. infestans. Parameters and symbols are defined in the text.
Fig 3.
Aggregation response of T. infestans fifth instar nymphs exposed to an exuviae suspension.
The arena was a square box half-painted with the exuviae suspension. A: painted surface, B: unpainted surface.
Table 1.
Mortality of Triatoma infestans exuviae combined with a fungal formulation on 5th instar nymphs.
Table 2.
Effect of fungal infection on Triatoma infestans female reproductive parameters.
Table 3.
Triatoma infestans mortality results of the field assays in rural houses.
Table 4.
Stage-specific mean development time (average time in stage, in days), and stage-specific probability of survival to the next stage of Triatoma infestans; Gi and Pi were calculated with Eqs 3 and 4, respectively.
Table 5.
Estimation of the stage-specific hazard ratios (HR) of the effect of Beauveria bassiana on Triatoma infestans and their 95% confidence intervals based on the stage-specific mortality rate, pooling stages into three categories.
Table 6.
Stage-specific estimates of the mortality factor due to the effect of the fungal pathogen (θi).
Fig 4.
Performance of the fungal pathogen on the triatomine population dynamics based on the net population reproductive rate (R0), as a function of the box Efficacy factor and the number of boxes/house.
The black hatched horizontal line indicates the value of R0 = 1, above which the triatomine population always increases; below that line the triatomine population always decreases.
Fig 5.
Combination of the Efficacy factor (E) and the number of boxes per house (n) to maintain the net population growth rate (RoP) within a band of ±10% around 1.
Fig 6.
Simulated time series of the effects of the pathogen on the size of a T. infestans population during 240 days for four selected values of the box Efficacy factor (E), and four selected number of boxes (n) per house.
Fig 7.
Sobol’s T index of parameter importance of four of the model’s parameters in their effects on two model output variables: the net rate of population increase (Ro), and triatomine population size at day 120 of the simulations.
Fig 8.
Boxplots of the model's predictions and the field data for infected and non-infected nymphs and adults.
The blue boxes include 25%-75% of the values; the red dot is the median of the distribution of all values, the vertical bars identify the non-outlier range, and the green dots identify outliers.