ecological survey of medically important flies in andimeshk county, southwest iran: species composition, diversity and synanthropy

Background: flies play a significant role in public health because of their potential to transmit human pathogens and cause myiasis. this study aimed to investigate the species composition, abundance, biodiversity, and synanthropy of medical­ly important flies in southwest iran.methods: flies were collected from urban, semi-urban and non-residential ecosystems of andimeshk county, southwest iran, from 2020 to 2021 using a bottle trap and sweep net. all collected specimens were identified using taxonomic keys. biodiversity and synanthropic indices were calculated.results: a total of 15644 flies belonging to three families of sarcophagidae, calliphoridae and muscidae were collect­ed, comprising 11 genus and 18 species of sarcophaga ruficornis (0.5%), s. aegyptica (0.9%), s. melanura (0.6%), s. africa (0.6%), sarcophaga sp. (2.6%), ravinia pernix (0.4%), sarcophila sp. (0.3%), wohlfahrtia sp. (0.6%), chrysomya albiceps (9%), chrysomya megacephala (36.3%), lucilia sericata (2.5%), calliphora vicina (0.3%), pole­nia sp. (0.5%), musca domestica (30.8%), musca automnalis (0.6%), muscina stabulans (2.4%), muscina prolapse (0.4%), atherigona sp. (0.6%) were trapped. the synanthropic index (si) was +52.25, +46.2, +35.1, +35.95, and +21.45 for the myiasis-causing species, including c. vicina, s. africa, c. albispes, c. megalocephala and s. aegyptica, respec­tively. the biodiversity and evenness indices were 1.82±0.026 and 0.6306±0.0009, indicating a relatively high diversity and moderate/high evenness of flies in the study area.conclusion: given synanthropic behavior and widespread presence of c. megacephala, this species should be priori­tized in future surveillance and control programs to reduce public health risks.