psychodidae family is characterized by numerous parallel veins running to wing margin and the presence of dense hairs on the wings and thorax . from 5 psychodidae subfamilies ,
phlebotominae is known to phlebotomine sand flies by biting mouth parts that are longer than the head , five - segmented palps , nearly cylindrical antennae , a five - brached radial vein on the wing , and the absence of an eye - bridge ( lane and crosskey 1993 ) .
generally , sand flies are distinguished from other small flies by their size ( 2.53.5 mm in length ) , characteristic hopping flight , and the  v  position in which they hold their wings while resting ( triplehom and jhonson 2005 ) . in the old world , about 40 species of phlebotomus have been proven or suspected vectors of leishmania ( rassi 2004 ) . in iran , 44 species of the sand flies are found and the presence of other 10 species is doubtful . in the endemic center of northwest of iran , two species of ph .
this parasitic disease is known one of ten major diseases by who ( maia et al .
it has widely spread not only in tropical countries but also in some regions with very different topography ( faiman 2000 , who 2010 ) .
clinically , leishmaniasis is observed in four types : visceral leishmaniasis ( vl ) , cutaneous leishmaniasis ( cl ) , mucocutaneus leishmaniasis ( ml ) and difuse cutaneous leishmaniasis ( dcl ) ( who 1994 ) . from 4 mentioned types , only two types of visceral and cutaneous leishmaniasis are common in iran .
this disease is observed in all areas of iran sporadically but the endemic foci of the disease have been reported from ardabil , fars , boshehr and east azerbaijan provinces ( rassi et al . 2005 , oshaghi et al .
some rural areas of azarshar district in east azarbaijan province have been reported to be endemic for visceral leishmaniasis with more than 34 new cases . performing the control plans without sufficient information about the
therefore , this study was carried out during late april to late october 2010 in rural areas of azarshahr district , east azarbaijan province , northwestern iran , to identify diversity , species composition and other ecological parameters .
it is limited to lake of urmia from the west , to ajabshir city from the south , to osko from the north and to sahand mountains from the east . in this county ,
the mean of the annual temperature is 15.25 and the mean of monthly maxi - mum and minimum temperatures were 27.7 and 3.7 c respectively .
the population of this county has been 103952 people in 2006 . according to reported cases of the disease , a number of villages including : segaiesh , amirdizaj , almalodash , jaragil and germezgol were selected from the county of azarshahr in east azarbaijan province .
segaiesh village : it is located 14 km from azar shahr with 183 families and 633 people in 2010 . amirdizaj village : it is located 16 km from azar shahr with 250 families and 1046 people . almalodash village : it is located 20 km from azar shahr with 182 family and 860 people .
jaragil village : it is located 15 km from azar shahr with 110 families and 422 people .
germezgol village : it is 12 km from azar shahr with 70 families and 300 people in 2010 .
sand flies were collected using sticky traps ( castor oil coated white papers 20 cm 30 cm ) biweekly from selected villages indoors ( bedrooms , guest room , toilet and stable ) and outdoors ( rodent burrow ) . traps ( 60 papers per village ) were installed in sunset and sand flies were collected during sunrise .
sample collection began in late april and continued until late october 2010 , when sand fly activities were reduced sharply .
collected sand flies were stored in 96% ethanol . in the laboratory for species identification , head and three last abdomen segments of females ,
species identification were carried out after one week using keys of sand flies ( rassi and hanafi bojd 2006 ) .
the density of sand flies collected by sticky traps was calculated using the formula number of specimens / m of sticky traps and numbers of specimens / number of traps .
logistic regression used to investigate the existence of a correlation between the abundance of the sand flies , and average monthly temperature in the study area using sas software ( kasap et al .
the density of species was corrected according to the formula ( guernaoui 2009 , rajider 2010 ) 
 density  =  1+number  of  specimensnumber  of  traps 
  to calculate the species diversity in a population , there are different methods but in most resources , shannon - weaver index has been used .
shannon - weaver index is shown as 
 h'=i=1s=  pi  loge  pi . 
 in this formula , s is the richness of the species and pi is the proportion of species ith in the population and log e is common logarithm . to convert it to common logarithm , it should be multiply in 2.303 . in the present study ,
there are many kind of species diversity indexes , a common one is the shannon - weaver index : 
 ( h'=i=1s  pilogepi ) 
 h=the diversity indexpi = the proportion of the ith speciesloge = natural logs = number of species in the community the proportion of the ith species number of species in the community
it is limited to lake of urmia from the west , to ajabshir city from the south , to osko from the north and to sahand mountains from the east . in this county ,
the mean of the annual temperature is 15.25 and the mean of monthly maxi - mum and minimum temperatures were 27.7 and 3.7 c respectively .
according to reported cases of the disease , a number of villages including : segaiesh , amirdizaj , almalodash , jaragil and germezgol were selected from the county of azarshahr in east azarbaijan province .
segaiesh village : it is located 14 km from azar shahr with 183 families and 633 people in 2010 . amirdizaj village : it is located 16 km from azar shahr with 250 families and 1046 people . almalodash village : it is located 20 km from azar shahr with 182 family and 860 people .
jaragil village : it is located 15 km from azar shahr with 110 families and 422 people .
germezgol village : it is 12 km from azar shahr with 70 families and 300 people in 2010 .
sand flies were collected using sticky traps ( castor oil coated white papers 20 cm 30 cm ) biweekly from selected villages indoors ( bedrooms , guest room , toilet and stable ) and outdoors ( rodent burrow ) . traps ( 60 papers per village ) were installed in sunset and sand flies were collected during sunrise .
sample collection began in late april and continued until late october 2010 , when sand fly activities were reduced sharply .
collected sand flies were stored in 96% ethanol . in the laboratory for species identification , head and three last abdomen segments of females , head with whole body of males specimens were mounted in puri s medium .
species identification were carried out after one week using keys of sand flies ( rassi and hanafi bojd 2006 ) .
the density of sand flies collected by sticky traps was calculated using the formula number of specimens / m of sticky traps and numbers of specimens / number of traps .
logistic regression used to investigate the existence of a correlation between the abundance of the sand flies , and average monthly temperature in the study area using sas software ( kasap et al .
the density of species was corrected according to the formula ( guernaoui 2009 , rajider 2010 ) 
 density  =  1+number  of  specimensnumber  of  traps 

to calculate the species diversity in a population , there are different methods but in most resources , shannon - weaver index has been used .
shannon - weaver index is shown as 
 h'=i=1s=  pi  loge  pi . 
 in this formula , s is the richness of the species and pi is the proportion of species ith in the population and log e is common logarithm . to convert it to common logarithm , it should be multiply in 2.303 . in the present study ,
there are many kind of species diversity indexes , a common one is the shannon - weaver index : 
 ( h'=i=1s  pilogepi ) 
 h=the diversity indexpi = the proportion of the ith speciesloge = natural logs = number of species in the community the proportion of the ith species number of species in the community
according to formula , monthly average density , number of specimens / m of sticky traps were 37.60 , 41.10 , 40.23 , 30.38 and 30.67 in almalodash , jaragil , segaieesh , amirdizaj and germezgol , respectively . corrected monthly average density , number of specimens / number of traps , in mentioned villages were 1.47 , 1.51 , 1.39 and 1.40
this study is the report of the results of entomology investigations on sand flies in azarshahr district .
the geographical location of this district is appropriate for the population being potentially at risk for visceral leishmaniasis . according to table 1 ,
the corrected density of sand flies in jaragil and segaiesh villages had highest level ( 1.51 ) and we found the lowest level ( 1.39 ) in amirdizaj village .
the monthly activities of sand flies started from first half of june and have been continued to second half of october .
density of sand flies in studied villages in azarshahr district , eastern azarbaijan , iran , 2010 to calculate the species diversity , we used the formula shannon - weaver because it has been used in most resources to calculate diversity .
the results are shown in tables 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 and 6 .
the most level of density was related to august . whereas , there was a peak of temperature in this month . in another words ,
the population of the sand flies dynamically was direct correlation to the temperature of the area but to the humidity .
given the history of the emergence of the sand flies adults in the region ( 20 may , 2010 ) and the density peak of in this region , it can be determined the control programs .
especially , if there is chemical control program , we can determine exact date of residual spraying reasonably and avoid unreasonable residual spraying , further costs and extreme residual spraying . among 16 species collected and identified , ph .
mesghali had lowest density ( 0.18% ) . according to the studies of rassi et al .
2000 on the fauna of the sand flies in west north of iran and kaverizadeh et al .
2000 on the fauna of sand flies in ahar , all 16 species have been reported first time in azarshahr .
furthermore , two species of s. hodgsoni and p. mesghali have been observed in east azerbaijan .
two main factors of species diversity are : richness of species and evenness of species .
richness of species is the species diversity in the population and the evenness of species is the species diversity of the people in the species .
the results are shown in tables 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 and 6 . in al - baha province in the saudi arabia , a similar study has been performed ( dohaandsomy 2010 ) with bionomics relation of phlebotomine sand flies population with temperature and species diversity in different places that its result is compatible to our results of this study .
diversity of sand flies in almalodash village in azarshahr district , eastern azarbaijan , iran , 2010 diversity of sand flies in amirdizaj village in azarshahr district , eastern azarbaijan , iran , 2010 diversity of sand flies in jaragil village in azarshahr district , eastern azarbaijan , iran , 2010 diversity of sand flies in segaiesh village in azarshahr district , eastern azarbaijan , iran , 2010 diversity of sand flies in germezgol village in azarshahr district , eastern azarbaijan , iran , 2010 due to the tables of species diversity , it is obvious that the species diversity in amirdizaj village is in highest level than other villages and the diversity of the sand flies in this village ( population b ) has more diversity and better results .
according to the results , most species diversity was observed in amirdizaj , therefore , this village can be the best choice for determine of species composition of sand flies in the study area .
it should be mentioned , identifying the diversity and seasonal abundance of the collected species is very important for prediction of the period of maximum risk for leishmaniasis transmission and for the successful implementation of a control program .
 background : there are nearly 1000 species of phlebotomine sand flies in 6 genera , of which only two , phlebotomus in the old world and lutzomyia in the new world are medically important . 
 globally , leishmaniasis prevalent in 98 countries and affects estimated 12 million people with almost two million new cases per year . some rural areas of azarshahr district in east azarbaijan province have been reported to be endemic for visceral leishmaniasis . 
 this study is the first attempt to determine the species diversity and density in a new focus of visceral leishmaniasis in azarshahr district , east azarbaijan province , iran.methods:sand flies were collected form indoor and outdoor biweekly using sticky traps . 
 diversity index of the collected sand flies within different villages were estimated by the shannon-weaver.results:the activity of the sand flies extended from april to october with one peak in august . 
 diversity of sand flies within study area were estimated as 0.917 , 1.867 , 1.339 , 1.673 , and 1.562 in almalodash , jaragil , segaiesh , amirdizaj , and germezgol vvillages , respectively.conclusion:identifying the diversity and seasonal abundance of the collected species is of importance for prediction of the period of maximum risk for leishmaniasis transmission and for the successful implementation of a control program . 
 species diversity is one of the most important factors in ecological studies . 
Introduction
Material and Methods
Study area
Selection of Study villages
Sand fly sampling
Determination of Density
Determination of the Species Diversity
Results
Discussion
Conclusion