Department of Aquaculture and Fish Diseases, Fisheries Faculty, Firat University, 23200 Elazig, Turkey.
Biology Department, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey, Joint Health Sciences Center, 201 South Broadway, Camden, NJ 08103, USA.
Biol Lett. 2023 Apr;19(4):20220484. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2022.0484. Epub 2023 Apr 12.
Parasites in which freshwater snails are intermediate hosts pose a serious threat to human health worldwide. We show here that freshwater snails can potentially be controlled by leech predation; in principle, this approach could significantly reduce snail-borne parasitic diseases (SBPDs). Specifically, glossiphoniid leeches, and congener species consume freshwater snails indiscriminately, while other common leeches do not. A single adult , for example, can consume up to its weight in snails, e.g. per day. Our predator-prey models suggest that snail populations could be eliminated in relatively short time periods (approximately six months) using a leech biocontrol approach. This could have considerable impact on global SBPDs by breaking the intermediate host life cycle.
寄生虫以淡水螺为中间宿主，对全球人类健康构成严重威胁。我们在此表明，通过蛭类捕食可以潜在地控制淡水螺；原则上，这种方法可以显著减少由螺类传播的寄生虫病（SBPD）。具体而言，蛭类和同种物种会不加区分地捕食淡水螺，而其他常见的蛭类则不会。例如，一只成年蛭类可以消耗相当于其体重的螺类，即每天可以吃掉 。我们的捕食者-猎物模型表明，在相对较短的时间内（大约六个月），使用蛭类生物控制方法可以消灭螺类种群。这将通过打破中间宿主的生命周期对全球 SBPD 产生重大影响。
