Objective: To understand the community structure of Rhombomys opimus parasitic fleas in the natural plague focus in Junggar Basin, so as to explain the relationship between the community structure and the prevalence of animal plague in this area.
Methods: The body fleas of R.opimus which were collected in 2005-2010 from the Junggar Basin was analysed by community ecology method, an each clustered flea community was compared with information of pathogenic and serological indicators of animal plague epidemic by statistic method.
Results: The community structure of R. opimus parasitic fleas included 19 species and was very complicated, with only 3 were identified as 'common' species but the others belonged to 'rare' species. Both the average richness and diversity of flea community were higher, as 1.66 and 1.5556, with dominance not obvious (0.332) and the homogeneity as moderate (0.5283). The community structure of R. opimus parasitic fleas could be changed by the following factors as: the rates of flea parasitic/flea index and the proportions of main fleas etc. The flea community could be divided into 5 clusters according to the above said elements. All these data showed that the fleas of R. opimus parasitic fleas possess the nature of multi-parasitism.
Conclusions: The community of R. opimus parasitic fleas existed heterogeneous of geographic region, and this phenomenon associated with the animal plague epidemic strength.