Year 1 Tanzanian ponds snail-parasite dynamics

Different populations of hosts and parasites experience distinct seasonality in environmental factors, depending on local-scale biotic and abiotic factors. This can lead to highly heterogeneous disease outcomes across host ranges. Variable seasonality characterizes urogenital schistosomiasis, a neglected tropical disease caused by parasitic trematodes (Schistosoma haematobium). Their intermediate hosts are aquatic Bulinus snails that are highly adapted to extreme rainfall seasonality, undergoing prolonged dormancy yearly. While Bulinus snails have a remarkable capacity for rebounding following dormancy, we investigated the extent to which parasite survival within snails is diminished. We conducted an investigation of seasonal snail-schistosome dynamics in 109 ponds of variable ephemerality in Tanzania from August 2021 to July 2022. First, we found that ponds have two synchronized peaks of schistosome infection prevalence and observed cercariae, though of lower magnitude in the fully..., Sampling sites
We surveyed 109 ponds monthly in six Tanzanian districts of the Lake Victoria watershed from 23 August 2021–27 July 2022 (Figure 1). These ponds are created or modified by village communities to increase year-round water availability for the purpose of human household use (“Kisima”), for cattle use (“Lambo”), or for longer term water storage dams with unspecified use (“Bwawa”). A small number of ephemeral rivers and streams (“Mto” or “Kijito”) were also included in the study. Many of these ponds dry completely for several months of the year (Figure 2A) or dramatically decrease in size (Figure 2B) in the dry season. All ponds were chosen with approval of, and surveys were conducted in collaboration with, local village leaders. A larger pilot study was conducted in 2020–2021 including 467 pond sites that were identified by local leaders as potential transmission sites across the six districts, based on frequent human and cattle use (31). In some cases, this included all pon..., , This README file was generated on 2024-01-08 by Naima Starkloff.

GENERAL INFORMATION

1. Title of Dataset: Year 1 Tanzanian ponds snail-parasite dynamics

2. Author Information
A. Principal Investigator Contact Information
Name: David J. Civitello
Institution: Emory University
Address: Atlanta, GA USA
Email:

B. Associate or Co-investigator Contact Information
Name: Naima C. Starkloff
Institution: Emory University
Address: Atlanta, GA USA
Email:

3. Date of data collection (single date, range, approximate date): August 2021-July 2022

4. Geographic location of data collection: Northwestern Tanzania (Busega, Kishapu, Kwimba, Magu, Misungwi And Sengerema districts)

5. Information about funding sources that supported the collection of the data:
N.C.S. and D.J.C. were supported by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases R01 AI50774-01. All fieldwork expenses were also funded by this source.

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