Review of "The Biology of Echinostomes. From the Molecule to the Community" by Bernard Fried and Rafael Toledo (eds.)

Book review of "The Biology of Echinostomes. From the Molecule to the Community" by Bernard Fried and Rafael Toledo (eds.) Book details Fried B, Toledo R: The Biology of Echinostomes. From the Molecule to the Community Springer Science+Business Media LLC; 2009:344. ISBN 978-0-387-09576-9 Review In spite of their limited medical, veterinary or wildlife importance "echinostomes" (a term used in the past for species of Echinostoma and recently adopted by some authors for any member of the family Echinostomatidae) may appear to be the most intensely reviewed/overviewed group of trematodes, owing to the enthusiasm of Fried and aficionados and the fact that some species of Echinostoma have been used as model organisms in some areas of trematode research. This multi-authored monograph is the second book within the last decade that focuses on "echinostomes" as experimental models. It provides a detailed review of the literature, mostly for the period 1998-2007, thus supplementing "Echinostomes as experimental models for biological research" (Kluwer, Dordrecht) co-edited by Fried & Graczyk in 2000. The present book comprises 13 review papers covering a diversity of topics loosely held together under the theme of "echinostome" and "echinostome-like" (a poorly chosen term for the psilostomid Ribeiroia ondatrae) digenean biology and host-parasite interactions. The editors have invited 27 scientists from seven countries (11 from the USA, four from Spain, three each from France and Switzerland, two each from Brazil and the UK and one each from China and Korea). The authorship represents different levels of expertise including authorities in research on Echinostoma spp. experimental systems and novices (lead authors with one to four first-authored papers on echinostomatids). All chapters follow a standard format with helpful subtitles and (usually) conclusions and, in spite of some repetitions/overlaps and lack of data cross-check between some chapters, the evenness of the text appearance indicates substantial editorial effort. The monograph starts with outlines of recent developments in echinostomatid systematics and life-cycles (Esteban & Muñoz-Antoli, Chapter 1) followed by in depth reviews of the complex interactions in the first intermediate snail host (Biomphalaria-Echinostoma system; Coustau et al., Chapter 2); hostparasite dynamics in the second intermediate hosts (Keeler & Huffman, Chapter 3); and establishment and development within the definitive hosts (Toledo, Chapter 4). Chapter 5 (Fried & Peoples) adds information to the previous book on maintenance of life-cycles in laboratory and tabulates studies carried out in Bernard Fried's laboratory from 1999 to 2007. The title of Chapter 6 "Echinostomes in the wild" (Maldonado & Lanfredi) is misleading since it briefly touches the subject of wildlife infections with Echinostoma spp. and surprisingly provides an incomplete listing of studies under the subheading "EchiPublished: 3 November 2009 Parasites & Vectors 2009, 2:52 doi:10.1186/1756-3305-2-52 Received: 29 October 2009 Accepted: 3 November 2009 This article is available from: http://www.parasitesandvectors.com/content/2/1/52 © 2009 Kostadinova; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.