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Turkish Journal of Zoology

BİLAL KUTRUP

DOI

-

Abstract

The distribution and abundance of cockroaches were investigated in six hospitals in Trabzon. A total of 4756 (692 females, 652 males and 3412 nymphs) cockroaches were caught between 1^{st} October 1999 and 30^{th} January 2000. It was found that three cockroach species were present in hospitals. Of these, Blattella germanica was the predominant species with 98.25%, followed by Blatta orientalis (1.12%) and Periplaneta americana (0.63%). Although the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, was found in all areas of the hospitals, Blatta orientalis and Periplaneta americana were only caught in kitchens. When comparing the population density of German cockroaches in different places chosen for this study, it was clear that the number of this cockroach per 10 m^2 (102.23) and infestation rate (83.61%) were higher in kitchens than in other places. It was seen that the population density of this species in kitchens is significantly different from that in other places (one-way ANOVA: F = 54.17, P < 0.01). Although several stages of B. germanica were observed in hospitals, nymphs showed the highest infestation rates (62.50-86.89%). Most of the nymphs were immature (67.28-88.26%). The infestation rate of immature nymphs was higher (88.26%) in kitchens than in other places, namely the patient rooms (67.28%), nurse rooms (76.34%) and doctor rooms (80.04%). In addition, some ecological parameters, such as humidity and temperature, were measured in the places studied to examine the relationship between the population density of B. germanica and these parameters. There seemed to be a very significant correlation between humidity and the population density of German cockroaches (R = 0.65, P < 0.01), but not for temperature (R = -0.2, P > 0.01). In conclusion, the population density of B. germanica increased over 45% humidity, but did not at lower humidity levels (39-45%).

Keywords

Cockroaches, Population density, Humidity, Temperature, Hospital

First Page

73

Last Page

77

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