Central Research Laboratories, Natural History Museum Vienna, Burgring 7, 1010, Vienna, Austria.
Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Vienna, Althanstraße 14, 1090, Vienna, Austria.
Parasitol Res. 2020 Dec;119(12):4135-4141. doi: 10.1007/s00436-020-06938-3. Epub 2020 Nov 5.
Avian schistosomes are of medical and veterinary importance as they are responsible for the annually occurring cercarial dermatitis outbreaks. For Austria, so far, only Trichobilharzia szidati Neuhaus 1952 was confirmed on species level as causative agent of cercarial dermatitis. Here we present the first record of Trichobilharzia franki Müller & Kimmig 1994 in Austria. The species was detected during a survey of digenean trematodes in Upper Austrian water bodies. Furthermore, we provide DNA barcodes of T. franki as well as measurements of several parasite individuals to indicate the intraspecific diversity. We also recommend the usage of an alternative primer pair, since the "standard COI primer pair" previously used for Schistosomatidae amplified an aberrant fragment in the sequence of T. franki. Overall, our study shows how limited our knowledge about occurrence and distribution of avian schistosomes in Austria is and how important it is to acquire such a knowledge to estimate ecological and epidemiological risks in the future.
禽类血吸虫具有医学和兽医重要性，因为它们是每年发生的尾蚴性皮炎爆发的原因。迄今为止，奥地利仅在物种水平上确认了 Trichobilharzia szidati Neuhaus 1952 是尾蚴性皮炎的病原体。在这里，我们首次记录了奥地利的 Trichobilharzia franki Müller & Kimmig 1994。该物种是在对奥地利上奥地利水体中双腔吸虫进行调查时发现的。此外，我们还提供了 T. franki 的 DNA 条码以及几个寄生虫个体的测量值，以表明种内多样性。我们还建议使用替代的引物对，因为以前用于 Schistosomatidae 的“标准 COI 引物对”在 T. franki 的序列中扩增出异常片段。总的来说，我们的研究表明，我们对奥地利禽类血吸虫的发生和分布的了解是多么有限，以及获取这种知识对于未来评估生态和流行病学风险是多么重要。
