S. G. Medvedev & A. L. Lobanov
Zoological Institute Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint-Petersburg, 19934, Russia (fleas@zin.ru, all@zin.ru)
The Information Analytical System (IAS) PARHOST1 of the world fauna of the flea involves 80 tables and 200.000 records comprising 100 Mb. The IAS is operated by more than 180 original programs, 85 consisting of logical queries of various degrees of complication.
The results of the analysis of the distribution and parasite-host relations were published (Medvedev, 1996; 1997ab; 1998, 2000ab, 2001, 2002). A multilevel classifier of flea skeletal structures and their elementary (irreducible) structural characters was developed. A table of complex characters and a table of distribution of their states by flea taxa were created. The factual table on the morphology of fleas contains 123 000 records comprising 20.2 Mb. A study was performed of the distribution of 1) different states of characters of structure of three tagmae of the body by flea taxa, 2) carriers of these states of flea species and genera by species and genus of hosts, and also by zoogeographic region. Methods of non-parametric statistics were used to assess the relationship of structural characters in fleas and their hosts, geographic distribution and also the influence of the structural characters on the expansion to host taxa. Some groups of character states of the head, thorax, and abdomen have been revealed to have the highest values of chi-square, irrespective of the methods of calculation. Most probably, their formation was determined to a large extent by co-evolutionary relationships.
Another IAS on blood-sucking insects of Russia is being created now.
We acknowledge support by the grants of Russian Fund of Fundamental investigations No. 02-04-48642 and 05-04-48719