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- - - Blood Parasites of Birds
Haemoproteus
Haemoproteus is a genus of protozoa that are parasitic in birds, reptiles and amphibians. Its name is derived from Greek: Haima, "blood", and Proteus, a sea god who had the power of assuming different shapes. The name Haemoproteus was first used in the description of Haemoproteus columbae in the blood of the pigeon Columba livia by Kruse in 1890. This was also the first description of this genus. Two other genera – Halteridium and Simondia – are now considered to be synonyms of Haemoproteus. The protozoa are intracellular parasites that infect the erythrocytes.
They are transmitted by blood sucking insects including mosquitoes, biting midges (Culicoides), louse flies (Hippoboscidae) and tabanid flies (Tabanidae). Infection with this genus is sometimes known as pseudomalaria because of the parasites' similarities with Plasmodium species. Within the genus there are at least 173 species, 5 varieties and 1 subspecies. Of these over 140 occur in birds, 16 in reptiles and 3 in amphibia: 14 orders and 50 families of birds are represented. These include gamebirds (Galliformes), waterfowl (Anseriformes), raptors (Accipitriformes, Falconiformes, Strigiformes), pigeons and doves (Columbiformes), and perching birds or songbirds (Passeriformes) (Wikipedia).
Leucocytozoon
Leucocytozoon (or Leukocytozoon) is a genus of parasitic protozoa belonging to the phylum Apicomplexia. The parasites were first seen by Danilewsky in 1884 in blood from an owl. The genus was created by Ziemann in 1898. This taxon was revised by Berestneff in 1904 and then by Sambon in 1908.
The species of this genus use blackflies (Simulium species) as their definitive host and birds as their intermediate host. There are over 100 species in this genus. Over 100 species of birds have been recorded as hosts to these parasites (Wikipedia).
Haemosporida in Prunella modularis
Haemoproteus spp. and Leucocytozoon spp., species of the Apicomplexans, comprise a diverse group of vector-transmitted parasites that infected red blood cells (in the case of Leucocytozoon spp. also white blood cells) and other organs within their vertebrate hosts (Atkinson and Van Riper, 1991; Valkiunas, 1993). Species of these parasite genera share several characters with human malaria parasites, therefore are referred as avian malaria. These parasites have been found in 68% of birds examined to date (Krone et al., 2001).
They are wide-spread geographically their prevalence in different regions are very different. They have served as model organisms for studies on many aspects of parasite-host interactions, including parasite-host evolution (Perkins and Shall, 2002, Ricklefs and Fallon, 2002), host life-history trade-offs (Richner et al., 1995; Nordling et al., 1998) and sexual selection (Hamilton and Zuk, 1982). The blood parasites are most frequently determined in peripheral blood smears. Recently, the molecular methods are commonly used for detect of the blood parasites. Polymerase chain reaction is generally more sensitive than traditional microscopic procedures (Perkins et al., 1998; Richard et al., 2002).
The cytochrome b gene of the blood parasite mitochondrial genome has been found to have conserved regions for construction of primer sites with variable sections of DNA between the conserved regions, which have made it suitable for detection and identification of Haemoproteus and Plasmodium lineages (Waldenström et al., 2004; Hellgren et al., 2004). In this study, we investigated the prevalence of blood parasites of the genera Haemoproteus and Leucocytozoon in the Dunnock (Prunella modularis) living in the subalpine zone of the West Carpathians.
