Strigea robusta causes polydactyly and severe forms of Rostand's anomaly P in water frogs.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Cases of polydactyly in natural populations of amphibians have attracted great interest from biologists. At the end of the 1940s, the French biologist Jean Rostand discovered a polymorphic syndrome in some water frog (Anura: Pelophylax) populations that included polydactyly and some severe morphological anomalies (he called it 'anomaly P'). The cause of this anomaly remains unknown for 70 years. In a previous study, we obtained anomaly P in the laboratory in tadpoles of water frogs that developed together with molluscs Planorbarius corneus (Mollusca: Gastropoda) collected in the field. We thus proposed the 'trematode hypothesis', according to which the infectious agent responsible for anomaly P is a trematode species.

Methods

Metacercariae from tadpoles with anoma

SUBMITTER: Svinin AO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7391616 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature