The coccidia species pfeifferinella ellipsoides exhibits spatial and species-specific variation in prevalence among freshwater snails

J Parasitol. 2024 Apr 1;110(2):150-154. doi: 10.1645/23-17.ABSTRACTFreshwater snails are commonly studied within the context of their role as intermediate hosts for digenetic trematodes. However, there are fundamental data deficiencies related to our understanding of directly transmitted parasites, such as coccidia, for freshwater snails. Because variation in coccidia pathogenicity and transmission among snail species likely has major impacts on snail community structure, we aimed to investigate the spatial distribution and prevalence of coccidia in several freshwater snail species throughout the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains ecoregions in Arkansas. We opportunistically collected 220 freshwater snails from 24 Ozark sites in summer 2022 and scanned fecal slides for the presence of coccidia. In summer 2023, we surveyed an additional 146 snails from 19 Ouachita sites. To test for apparent interactions among coccidia and trematodes, we scanned feces from a subset of snails (Physa and Planorbella in the Ozarks) that did not have concurrent trematode infections and from those that did. We observed oocysts that morphologically conformed to Pfeifferinella ellipsoides in 2 of the 9 snail taxa from 7 of the 43 sites. Planorbella trivolvis was infected at 2 of 6 sites in the Ozarks and 0 of 5 sites in the Ouachitas. Physa species were infected at 6 of 14 sites in the Ozarks and 0 of 12 sites in the Ouachitas. In the Ozarks, Pl. trivolvis had an overall prevalence of 0.13 (6 of 47), where...
Source: The Journal of Parasitology - Category: Parasitology Authors: Source Type: research