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Somatic Dimorphism in Cercariae of a Bird Schistosome
Phenotypic polymorphism is a commonly observed phenomenon in nature, but extremely rare in free-living stages of parasites. We describe a unique case of somatic polymorphism in conspecific cercariae of the bird schistosome Trichobilharzia sp. “peregra”, in which two morphs, conspicuously different i...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8953619/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35335614 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11030290 |
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author | Soldánová, Miroslava Kundid, Petra Scholz, Tomáš Kristoffersen, Roar Knudsen, Rune |
author_facet | Soldánová, Miroslava Kundid, Petra Scholz, Tomáš Kristoffersen, Roar Knudsen, Rune |
author_sort | Soldánová, Miroslava |
collection | PubMed |
description | Phenotypic polymorphism is a commonly observed phenomenon in nature, but extremely rare in free-living stages of parasites. We describe a unique case of somatic polymorphism in conspecific cercariae of the bird schistosome Trichobilharzia sp. “peregra”, in which two morphs, conspicuously different in their size, were released from a single Radix balthica snail. A detailed morphometric analysis that included multiple morphological parameters taken from 105 live and formalin-fixed cercariae isolated from several naturally infected snails provided reliable evidence for a division of all cercariae into two size groups that contained either large or small individuals. Large morph (total body length of 1368 and 1339 μm for live and formalin-fixed samples, respectively) differed significantly nearly in all morphological characteristics compared to small cercariae (total body length of 976 and 898 μm for live and formalin samples, respectively), regardless of the fixation method. Furthermore, we observed that small individuals represent the normal/commonly occurring phenotype in snail populations. The probable causes and consequences of generating an alternative, much larger phenotype in the parasite infrapopulation are discussed in the context of transmission ecology as possible benefits and disadvantages facilitating or preventing the successful completion of the life cycle. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8953619 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-89536192022-03-26 Somatic Dimorphism in Cercariae of a Bird Schistosome Soldánová, Miroslava Kundid, Petra Scholz, Tomáš Kristoffersen, Roar Knudsen, Rune Pathogens Article Phenotypic polymorphism is a commonly observed phenomenon in nature, but extremely rare in free-living stages of parasites. We describe a unique case of somatic polymorphism in conspecific cercariae of the bird schistosome Trichobilharzia sp. “peregra”, in which two morphs, conspicuously different in their size, were released from a single Radix balthica snail. A detailed morphometric analysis that included multiple morphological parameters taken from 105 live and formalin-fixed cercariae isolated from several naturally infected snails provided reliable evidence for a division of all cercariae into two size groups that contained either large or small individuals. Large morph (total body length of 1368 and 1339 μm for live and formalin-fixed samples, respectively) differed significantly nearly in all morphological characteristics compared to small cercariae (total body length of 976 and 898 μm for live and formalin samples, respectively), regardless of the fixation method. Furthermore, we observed that small individuals represent the normal/commonly occurring phenotype in snail populations. The probable causes and consequences of generating an alternative, much larger phenotype in the parasite infrapopulation are discussed in the context of transmission ecology as possible benefits and disadvantages facilitating or preventing the successful completion of the life cycle. MDPI 2022-02-24 /pmc/articles/PMC8953619/ /pubmed/35335614 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11030290 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Soldánová, Miroslava Kundid, Petra Scholz, Tomáš Kristoffersen, Roar Knudsen, Rune Somatic Dimorphism in Cercariae of a Bird Schistosome |
title | Somatic Dimorphism in Cercariae of a Bird Schistosome |
title_full | Somatic Dimorphism in Cercariae of a Bird Schistosome |
title_fullStr | Somatic Dimorphism in Cercariae of a Bird Schistosome |
title_full_unstemmed | Somatic Dimorphism in Cercariae of a Bird Schistosome |
title_short | Somatic Dimorphism in Cercariae of a Bird Schistosome |
title_sort | somatic dimorphism in cercariae of a bird schistosome |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8953619/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35335614 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pathogens11030290 |
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