دورية أكاديمية
Aquatic macrophytes and macroinvertebrate predators affect densities of snail hosts and local production of schistosome cercariae that cause human schistosomiasis.
العنوان: | Aquatic macrophytes and macroinvertebrate predators affect densities of snail hosts and local production of schistosome cercariae that cause human schistosomiasis. |
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المؤلفون: | Christopher J E Haggerty, Sidy Bakhoum, David J Civitello, Giulio A De Leo, Nicolas Jouanard, Raphael A Ndione, Justin V Remais, Gilles Riveau, Simon Senghor, Susanne H Sokolow, Souleymane Sow, Caitlin Wolfe, Chelsea L Wood, Isabel Jones, Andrew J Chamberlin, Jason R Rohr |
المصدر: | PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, Vol 14, Iss 7, p e0008417 (2020) |
بيانات النشر: | Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2020. |
سنة النشر: | 2020 |
المجموعة: | LCC:Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine LCC:Public aspects of medicine |
مصطلحات موضوعية: | Arctic medicine. Tropical medicine, RC955-962, Public aspects of medicine, RA1-1270 |
الوصف: | BACKGROUND:Schistosomiasis is responsible for the second highest burden of disease among neglected tropical diseases globally, with over 90 percent of cases occurring in African regions where drugs to treat the disease are only sporadically available. Additionally, human re-infection after treatment can be a problem where there are high numbers of infected snails in the environment. Recent experiments indicate that aquatic factors, including plants, nutrients, or predators, can influence snail abundance and parasite production within infected snails, both components of human risk. This study investigated how snail host abundance and release of cercariae (the free swimming stage infective to humans) varies at water access sites in an endemic region in Senegal, a setting where human schistosomiasis prevalence is among the highest globally. METHODS/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:We collected snail intermediate hosts at 15 random points stratified by three habitat types at 36 water access sites, and counted cercarial production by each snail after transfer to the laboratory on the same day. We found that aquatic vegetation was positively associated with per-capita cercarial release by snails, probably because macrophytes harbor periphyton resources that snails feed upon, and well-fed snails tend to produce more parasites. In contrast, the abundance of aquatic macroinvertebrate snail predators was negatively associated with per-capita cercarial release by snails, probably because of several potential sublethal effects on snails or snail infection, despite a positive association between snail predators and total snail numbers at a site, possibly due to shared habitat usage or prey tracking by the predators. Thus, complex bottom-up and top-down ecological effects in this region plausibly influence the snail shedding rate and thus, total local density of schistosome cercariae. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:Our study suggests that aquatic macrophytes and snail predators can influence per-capita cercarial production and total abundance of snails. Thus, snail control efforts might benefit by targeting specific snail habitats where parasite production is greatest. In conclusion, a better understanding of top-down and bottom-up ecological factors that regulate densities of cercarial release by snails, rather than solely snail densities or snail infection prevalence, might facilitate improved schistosomiasis control. |
نوع الوثيقة: | article |
وصف الملف: | electronic resource |
اللغة: | English |
تدمد: | 1935-2727 1935-2735 |
العلاقة: | https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2727Test; https://doaj.org/toc/1935-2735Test |
DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pntd.0008417 |
الوصول الحر: | https://doaj.org/article/b4d7c1929a1e41e4a02fde84eba04eb1Test |
رقم الانضمام: | edsdoj.b4d7c1929a1e41e4a02fde84eba04eb1 |
قاعدة البيانات: | Directory of Open Access Journals |
تدمد: | 19352727 19352735 |
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DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pntd.0008417 |