Exploring the Biodiversity of Parasites in Humans, Wild and Domestic Animals
A special issue of Pathogens (ISSN 2076-0817). This special issue belongs to the section "Parasitic Pathogens".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2025 | Viewed by 19608
Special Issue Editor
Interests: parasitic diseases; preventive veterinary medicine; hemoparasites; ectoparasites; one health
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Parasites represent a broad group of pathogens that can affect mammals and cause individual and collective damage. In a generic classification, we can group them into ecto- and endoparasites, which contain Arthropods, Protozoa, Acanthocephala and helminth specimens, can affect wild and domestic animals, as well humans. Monoxenous parasites need only one host to complete their life cycle, but many of them can affect different species of mammals. Heteroxenous parasites affect more than one host to complete their life cycle, and for some species, the hosts are two distinct species of mammals. Characterization of parasite infections has served as a tool for the assessment of environmental quality and they are also considered bioindicators of environmental impact in which the hosts are inserted. In preserved environments the hosts generally present great parasite diversity, but with few specimens to not cause damage to the health of the host. In altered environments, however, hosts may present a large number of parasites of the same or different species, which may lead to the appearance of clinical signs and even the death of the living being that harbors them. Hosts are typically co-infected by multiple species of parasites, resulting in high levels of complexity between interactions, and some authors have considered an individual host to be an ecosystem. Parasitic co-infections can also cause immunosuppression of the host, which may aggravate the clinical signs presented and hinder the recovery of the parasitized host. Therefore, knowledge of the parasitic biodiversity of a host or a group of them inserted in the same environment is extremely important for mammals, including humans and wild and domestic animals.
Prof. Dr. Júlia Angélica Gonçalves Da Silveira
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- ectoparasites
- hemoparasites
- endoparasites
- co-infections
- livestock
- pet species
- wildlife
- human parasites
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