Update of the helminth fauna in Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in Poland

Abstract

The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is a strictly protected species of large carnivore in Poland. It inhabits forest complexes in north-eastern Poland and the Carpathian region in southern Poland. The status of the lynx within Poland requires special attention because its range decreased between 1980 and 2001 and has not yet recovered. One of the factors negatively affecting lynx populations is diseases, particularly parasites. The helminth fauna of the Eurasian lynx is not fully known in Poland. Previous coprological studies revealed that Polish lynx have been infected with seven species of nematodes, three species of cestodes, and one species of trematode. In this study, we present new data based on examination of opportunistically collected lynx carcasses. The aim of the study was to complement data on the helminth fauna of Eurasian lynx inhabiting Poland based on morphological and molecular analysis of parasites. Four species of cestodes-Taenia lynciscapreoli, Mesocestoides lineatus, Spirometra sp., and Taenia krabbei-were found for the first time in Eurasian lynx from Poland and three previously reported species of nematodes-Ancylostoma tubaeforme, Toxascaris leonina, and Toxocara cati-were confirmed. Larvae of Trichinella britovi were also detected in Eurasian lynx in Poland for the first time.

Keywords: Carnivores; Endangered species; Eurasian lynx; Felidae; Helminth fauna.

Fig. 1

An outline map of Poland showing sample collection locations. Roman numerals in brackets represent ID numbers of studied lynx

Fig. 2

Phylograms for the four mtDNA fragments of the lynx parasite DNA samples collected in the study (in bold type) and the reference sequences from GeneBank (National Center for Biotechnology Information, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/). Evolutionary relationships of the taxa were implied using the Neighbor-Joining method (Tamura and Nei 1993) embedded in MEGA6 software (Tamura et al. 2013). The evolutionary distances were computed using the maximum composite likelihood method (Tamura and Kumar 2004) and are expressed in units of the number of base substitutions per site. The molecular phylogenies were drawn based on the following mtDNA fragments: a nicotinamide dehydrogenase subunit 1 (nad1); b nicotinamide dehydrogenase 5 (nad5), c small unit of rRNA (rrnS); and d cytochrome c oxydase (cox). Roman numerals indicate lyx ID, while Arabic numerals preceded by a dash indicate subsequent sampled parasite individuals