Blastocystis

Koehler, Anson V., Herath, H. M. P. Dilrukshi, Hall, Ross S., Wilcox, Stephen & Gasser, Robin B., 2024, Marked genetic diversity within Blastocystis in Australian wildlife revealed using a next generation sequencing-phylogenetic approach, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 23, pp. 100902-100902 : 100902-

3.3. Prevalence of Blastocystis STs in the animal species

In marsupials, ST13 was prominent – present in 93.3% of kangaroos and wallabies – but was detected in only one sambar deer sample (Table 1), whereas ST10, ST14 and ST24 were identified in small numbers of samples from these marsupials (Table 1).

In red deer, ST24 was prominent – present in all samples – and ST21, ST14, ST10, ST23 and ST25 were recorded in 90%, 80%, 60%, 40% and 30% of samples, respectively (Table 1). In fallow deer, ST24, ST14, ST10, ST21, ST25 and ST23 were recorded in 100%, 96%, 88%, 88%, 76% and 72% of samples, respectively (Table 1), whereas ST21 was present in 94.7% of sambar deer samples, and ST24, ST10, ST25, ST14 and ST 23 in 90.9%, 77.1%, 72.7%, 70.5% and 68.2% of these samples, respectively (Table 1). Although ST13 was detected in a sambar deer sample (0.8%) (Table 1), its presence might relate to pseudo-parasitism (cf. Koehler et al., 2016).

In other animals, ST13 and ST46 were both detected in one of two emu samples, and ST14, ST21, ST23, ST24 and ST 25 in another sample. Both ST13 and ST46 were also recorded in one feral dog sample (Table 1).

Of the two novel STs identified, ST46 was identified in 93.9% of kangaroos and 33.3% of wallabies (Table 1), and ST 45 in two kangaroo samples (1.1%) (Table 1).