rDNA-seq of Eimeria community: Petrogale penicillata. Eimeria

The brush-tailed rock-wallaby is currently threatened and as such, is part of captive breeding and translocation management strategies. Such events may disturb the host-parasite relationship through stress on the animal and change of the environment. As a model organism, we looked at Eimeria, an apicomplexan protozoan parasite that is ubiquitous in the environment and typically host-specific. Using Illumina MiSeq, we examined the Eimeria community structure from brush-tailed rock-wallabies from different communities that were either free-ranging (wild), captive bred or had been translocated into an area with an existing population (supplemented).