Trypanosomatids in Small Mammals of an Agroecosystem in Central Brazil: Another Piece in the Puzzle of Parasite Transmission in an Anthropogenic Landscape

We surveyed infection by spp. and spp. in small wild mammals from Cumari, Goiás State aiming to investigate the diversity of trypanosomatid in a modified landscape of the Brazilian Cerrado (and possible infection overlapping with canids from the same area). Blood, skin, spleen, and liver samples were collected for parasitological, serological, and molecular assays. was the most abundant species ( = 70; 48.6%) and it was the only one with patent parasitemia. Characterization by mini-exon and 18SrDNA targets were achieved in 7/10 hemocultures with positive fresh blood examination, which confirmed the infection by Discrete Typing Units (DTU) TcI in single ( = 2) and mixed infections with other DTUs ( = 5). and were detected in skin fragments from and respectively. were found to be infected by and while sp. DNA was detected in the liver of and . Subpatent infection by and sp. was serologically detected in 15% and 9% of the small mammal fauna, respectively. Small mammals from Cumari are included in and spp. transmission cycles, showing a higher diversity of trypanosomatid species and/or genotypes than that observed in canids of the same agroecosystem.