Mori Kensuke, Liccioli Stefano, Marceau Danielle, Massolo Alessandro
Department of Geomatics Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Department of Ecosystem and Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Int J Parasitol Parasites Wildl. 2019 Mar 19;9:49-55. doi: 10.1016/j.ijppaw.2019.03.012. eCollection 2019 Aug.
() is a parasite with a complex life cycle whose transmission involves a predator-prey interaction. Accidental ingestion of eggs by humans may cause alveolar echinococcosis, a potentially fatal disease. Although previous research suggested that the composition of the assemblage of prey species may play a key role in the transmission, the relation between presence and the prey assemblages has never been analyzed. Herein, we propose a community analysis approach, based on assemblage similarity statistics, clustering, non-metric dimensional scaling and GLM modelling to analyze the relationships between small mammal assemblages, environmental variables, and the prevalence of in intermediate and definitive hosts in an urban area.
In our study areas within the City of Calgary, Alberta (Canada), we identified three main small mammal assemblages associated with different prevalence of , characterized by a different proportion of species known to be good intermediate hosts for . As expected, assemblages with higher proportion of species susceptible to were observed with higher prevalence of parasite, whereas the total abundance of small mammals was not a predictor of transmission likely due to dilution effect. Furthermore, these assemblages were also predicted by simple environmental proxies such as land cover and terrain.
Our results indicated that the use of a community analysis approach allows for robust characterization of these complex and multivariate relationships, and may offer a promising tool for further understanding of parasite epidemiology in complex multi-host systems. In addition, this analysis indicates that it is possible to predict potential foci of disease risk within urban areas using environmental data commonly available to city planners and land managers.
（某寄生虫名）是一种生命周期复杂的寄生虫，其传播涉及捕食者与猎物的相互作用。人类意外摄入其虫卵可能会导致泡型包虫病，这是一种潜在的致命疾病。尽管先前的研究表明猎物物种组合的构成可能在传播中起关键作用，但该寄生虫的存在与猎物组合之间的关系从未被分析过。在此，我们提出一种群落分析方法，基于组合相似性统计、聚类、非度量多维标度法和广义线性模型建模，来分析城市地区小型哺乳动物组合、环境变量以及中间宿主和终末宿主中该寄生虫患病率之间的关系。
在加拿大艾伯塔省卡尔加里市的研究区域内，我们识别出与该寄生虫不同患病率相关的三种主要小型哺乳动物组合，其特征是已知对该寄生虫是良好中间宿主的物种比例不同。正如预期的那样，观察到对该寄生虫易感物种比例较高的组合，其寄生虫患病率也较高，而小型哺乳动物的总丰度并非传播的预测指标，这可能是由于稀释效应。此外，这些组合也可通过诸如土地覆盖和地形等简单的环境指标来预测。
我们的结果表明，使用群落分析方法能够对这些复杂的多变量关系进行有力的表征，并且可能为进一步理解复杂多宿主系统中的寄生虫流行病学提供一个有前景的工具。此外，该分析表明，利用城市规划者和土地管理者通常可获取的环境数据来预测城市地区潜在的疾病风险热点是有可能的。
