Egyed László, Nagy Dávidné, Lang Zsolt
Veterinary Medical Research Institute, 1143 Budapest, Hungary.
Healthware Consulting Ltd., 1093 Budapest, Hungary.
Microorganisms. 2023 Mar 29;11(4):881. doi: 10.3390/microorganisms11040881.
In this work we exploited the parallel dense tick and hedgehog populations of an urban park in Budapest, Hungary as a good host-parasite model to obtain detailed data about this physiological relationship. Over a 27-week period from April to October, 57 hedgehogs were captured in an urban park and kept for 10-14 days in animal house. All dropped off ticks were sampled, which allowed us to draw more a detailed picture of -hedgehog relationships. The results indicated that the hedgehog is an effective host for ticks (prevalence: 100%) and the mean intensity of infestation was 83.25. Of the male ticks, 68.42% dropped off dead; 1.56% of the dropped off nymphs and 11.4% of the larvae finished their bloodmeal with red cuticles, while 5.79% of the females could not finish their blood meal, and dropped off dried, dead, or shrunken. We applied novel statistical methods of survival analysis of prevalent cohorts to estimate the whole attachment times of ticks from the observed attachment times, having no information about when the ticks attached to their hosts. Mean attachment times were 4 days for larvae, 5 days for nymphs, 10 days for females, and 8 days for males. On the first day after capture of the hosts, fewer females, nymphs, and larvae detached engorged than had been predicted, but this was not true for males. Mean intensity of infestation per host was 1.4 for males, 6.7 for females, 45.0 for nymphs, and 29.3 for larvae. As regards seasonality, the activity of all stages of ticks consisted of several smaller peaks and considerably differed by season. Studies of the dense tick-host populations of this natural habitat could provide further valuable data about tick-host relations, the data of which cannot be drawn from most other hedgehog habitats.
在这项研究中，我们利用匈牙利布达佩斯一个城市公园中蜱虫和刺猬的平行密集种群，作为一个良好的宿主 - 寄生虫模型，以获取有关这种生理关系的详细数据。在从4月到10月的27周时间里，在一个城市公园捕获了57只刺猬，并在动物饲养舍中饲养10 - 14天。对所有掉落的蜱虫进行采样，这使我们能够更详细地描绘刺猬与蜱虫的关系。结果表明，刺猬是蜱虫的有效宿主（感染率：100%），平均感染强度为83.25。在掉落的雄蜱中，68.42%掉落时已死亡；掉落的若蜱中有1.56%、幼虫中有11.4%吸饱血后体表呈红色，而5.79%的雌蜱未能吸饱血，掉落时干瘪、死亡或萎缩。我们应用了流行队列生存分析的新统计方法，根据观察到的附着时间来估计蜱虫的整个附着时间，而对于蜱虫何时附着到宿主上并无相关信息。幼虫的平均附着时间为4天，若蜱为5天，雌蜱为10天，雄蜱为8天。在捕获宿主后的第一天，吸饱血后脱落的雌蜱、若蜱和幼虫比预期的少，但雄蜱并非如此。每只宿主的平均感染强度，雄蜱为1.4，雌蜱为6.7，若蜱为45.0，幼虫为29.3。关于季节性，蜱虫各阶段的活动呈现出几个较小的高峰，且随季节有显著差异。对这个自然栖息地中密集的蜱 - 宿主种群的研究，可以提供关于蜱 - 宿主关系的更多有价值的数据，而这些数据无法从大多数其他刺猬栖息地中获取。
