Marszewska Anna, Cichy Anna, Bulantová Jana, Horák Petr, Żbikowska Elżbieta
Department of Invertebrate Zoology, Faculty of Biology and Environment Protection, Nicolaus Copernicus University of Torun, Toruń, Poland.
Department of Parasitology, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.
PeerJ. 2018 Jun 25;6:e5045. doi: 10.7717/peerj.5045. eCollection 2018.
Swimmer's itch is a re-emerging human disease caused by bird schistosome cercariae, which can infect bathing or working people in water bodies. Even if cercariae fail after penetrating the human skin, they can cause dangerous symptoms in atypical mammal hosts. One of the natural methods to reduce the presence of cercariae in the environment could lie in the introduction of non-host snail species to the ecosystem, which is known as the "dilution" or "decoy" effect. The caenogastropod -an alien in Europe-could be a good candidate against swimmer's itch because of its apparent resistance to invasion by European bird schistosome species and its high population density. As a pilot study on this topic, we have carried out a laboratory experiment on how influences the infestation of the intermediate host (a native lymnaeid) by the bird schistosome . We found that the co-exposure of 200 individuals per one to the miracidia under experimental conditions makes the infestation ineffective. Our results show that a non-host snail population has the potential to interfere with the transmission of a trematode via suitable snail hosts.
尾蚴性皮炎是一种由鸟类血吸虫尾蚴引起的再度出现的人类疾病，可感染在水体中沐浴或工作的人。即使尾蚴穿透人体皮肤后未能成功寄生，它们也会在非典型哺乳动物宿主中引发危险症状。减少环境中尾蚴数量的一种自然方法可能是向生态系统中引入非宿主螺类物种，这被称为“稀释”或“诱饵”效应。这种新腹足目螺类——在欧洲属于外来物种——可能是防治尾蚴性皮炎的理想选择，因为它对欧洲鸟类血吸虫物种的侵袭具有明显抗性，且种群密度高。作为关于这一主题的初步研究，我们进行了一项实验室实验，探究[具体物种]如何影响鸟类血吸虫[具体物种]对中间宿主[本地椎实螺属物种]的感染。我们发现，在实验条件下，每只[具体物种]暴露于200个[具体物种]毛蚴中会使感染无效。我们的结果表明，非宿主螺类种群有可能通过合适的螺类宿主干扰吸虫的传播。
