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The influence of water and humidity on the hatching of Nematodirus battus eggs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2011

J. van Dijk  and
E.R. Morgan
J. van Dijk*
Affiliation:
School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, BristolBS8 1UG, UK
E.R. Morgan
Affiliation:
School of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol, Woodland Road, BristolBS8 1UG, UK
*
*Fax: +44 (0) 1517946065E-mail: jan.van-dijk@liverpool.ac.uk
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Abstract

This paper examines the influence of water on the ecology of the eggs of Nematodirus battus, with a view to estimating the importance of including rainfall in mathematical models of parasite abundance. The literature suggests that, under pasture conditions, the availability of moisture is unlikely to be limiting for egg development, while eggs and infective larvae are highly resistant to desiccation. In the presented experiment, eggs that had been kept in salt sludges at 95% and 70% RH and were subsequently put at 15°C produced only a mildly accelerated, but not a mass, hatch, in the first few days after return to water. Eggs kept at higher osmotic pressures died. Mass hatching of infective larvae, described at pasture when spells of rain follow periods of drought, is unlikely to occur as the result of a sudden water influx into eggs. Since water is not necessary for migration of infective larvae from the soil on to grass, such peaks in larval abundance are more likely to arise from the effects of temperature on hatching of eggs.

Type
Research Papers
Information
Journal of Helminthology , Volume 86 , Issue 3 , September 2012 , pp. 287 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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