Ecological linkages between species diversity in communities and genetic diversity in populations have potential to influence the assembly of communities in habitats recovering from human disturbance, but few studies have attempted to synthesize relationships between these levels of biological organization, especially for locally adapted species. No such studies have been done in freshwater eco...

Morphological characteristics of the acanthocephalan Polymorphus minutus (Goeze, 1782), which was collected from duck Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus in Czech Republic, are described. The mitochondrial (mt) genome P. sequenced, with a total length 14,149 bp, comprising 36 genes including 12 protein coding (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA (tRNA) and two ribosomal (rrnL rrnS). This is similar to mt genomes ot...

Trophically-transmitted parasites often change the phenotype of their intermediate hosts in ways that increase their vulnerability to definitive hosts, hence favouring transmission. As a "collateral damage", manipulated hosts can also become easy prey for non-host predators that are dead ends for the parasite, and which are supposed to play no role in transmission strategies. Interestingly, inf...

Larval helminths often share individual intermediate hosts with other larval worms of the same or different species. In the case of immature acanthocephalans capable of altering the phenotype of their intermediate hosts, the benefits or costs of host sharing can be evaluated in terms of increased or decreased probability of transmission to a suitable definitive host. Competitive interactions am...

This paper provides a detailed redescription of the adult and the first morphological description of all juvenile stages of Scutovertex sculptus. Specimens from four European countries, Austria, Germany, France and Spain were investigated. The species specific characters are the broadened posterior notogastral setae (lp, h1–h3), the slightly broadened anterior notogastral seta (dm), the gastron...

Paratylenchus shenzhenensis n. sp. was collected from the rhizosphere soil of Anthurium andraeanum in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China. The new species is characterized by having a female with a small body (249-302 μm), well developed stylet (17-21 μm), rounded head with four submedian lobes and lip-region with a slight depression at the oral area, small post-vulval uterine sac with a few ve...

attempts were made to present a practical key for identification of small strongyles, the identification ofwhich seems to be a difficult task to do. 4000 nematodes collected from the large intestine of horses anddonkeys were examined. 18 species of small strongyles of horse and 15 of donkey were found. from 6species of large strongyles found in both animals, we only dealt with 3 of triodontopho...

From November 1997 to June 1998, 3,118 specimens of Echinogammarus stammeri (Karaman, 1931) (Amphipoda) were collected from the River Brenta (Northern Italy) and examined for larval helminths. Larvae of Polymorphus minutus (Goeze, 1782) singly infected the hemocoel of 23 (0.74%) crustaceans; all these larvae were cystacanth stages. This is the first record of Polymorphus minutus in E. stammeri....