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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...

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Autores principales: Soldánová, Miroslava, Kundid, Petra, Scholz, Tomáš, Kristoffersen, Roar, Knudsen, Rune
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
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.
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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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