Experimental water hyacinth invasion and destructive management increase human schistosome transmission potential.

ABSTRACT: Invasive species cause environmental degradation, decrease biodiversity, and alter ecosystem function. Invasions can also drive changes in vector-borne and zoonotic diseases by altering important traits of wildlife hosts or disease vectors. Managing invasive species can restore biodiversity and ecosystem function, but it may have cascading effects on hosts, parasites, and human risk of infection. Water hyacinth, Eichhornia crassipes, is an extremely detrimental invader in many sites of human schistosome transmission, especially in Lake Victoria, where hyacinth is correlated with high snail abundance and hotspots of human schistosome infection. Hyacinth is often managed via removal or in situ destruction, but the effects of these strategies on snail intermediate hosts and schistosomes are n

SUBMITTER: Desautels DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9991957 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature