Epidemiological role of humans, dogs and cats in the transmission of Trypanosoma cruzi in a central area of Argentina

Trypanosoma cruzi prevalence rates of human, dog and cat populations from 47 households of 3 rural localities of the phytogeographical Chaqueña area of Argentina were determined both by serological and xenodiagnostic procedures. Human prevalence rates were uniform and ranged from 49.6 to 58.7%. Overall prevalence rate in dogs (75.0%) was significantly higher than in humans (51.0%). The overall proportion of parasitemic individuals assessed by xenodiagnosis was significantly higher in either dog (64.2%) or cat (63.6%) populations than among humans (12.5%). Although both the average number of resident as well as infected individuals per household was higher for people than for dogs (6.5 vs. 3.3, and 3.4 vs. 2.4, respectively), the reverse was recorded when parasitemic individuals were considered (1.0 vs. 2.1). Results are discussed in relation to dog between dogs and people, and dogs and bugs. In the light of present data, dogs must be considered as the major donors of parasites to vector bugs and thus, principal contributors to transmission in this region of Argentina

Do monospecific stands of three Fucus species (Phaeophyta) comply with the ‘self-thinning rule’?

Development of biomass and density in experimental monospecific stands of Fucus serratus, F. vesiculosus and F. spiralis was followed on Helgoland (southern North Sea) in plots with three different initial germling densities. As biomass increased over time, considerable mortality occurred. Mortality was significantly higher in stands with higher initial densities, leading to similar final densities. The self-thinning law, which describes boundary conditions for combinations of biomass and density of plants, was refuted in two ways for all three Fucus species: (i) several data points on a bi-logarithmic plane lay considerably above self-thinning lines with conventional parameters from terrestrial plant ecology; however, ‘overall boundaries’ (i.e. a self-thinning line that constrains all lines found) from terrestrial plant ecology were not significantly transgressed, (ii) lines fitted with principal components analysis (PCA) revealed a positive correlation between stand biomass and density. Reasons are proposed why seaweeds generally seem to show higher maximum biomass for a given density than terrestrial plants. Size distributions at the end of the experiment were positively skewed with high Gini coefficients that lay in the range found in other seaweed studies. Inequality decreased with individual mass and increased with density. Gini coefficients were highly correlated with other measurements of inequality (coefficient of variation, skewness)

La enfermedad del adyuvante en ratas infectadas experimentalmente con Trypanosoma cruzi

Se estudió la evolución de la artritis por adyuvante en ratas que habían sido infectadas previamente con Trypanosoma cruzi, con el objeto de evaluar su competencia inmunológica a través de la respuesta artrítica. La artritis por adyuvante se indujo en ratas adultas, endocriadas de ambos sexos, con 0.1 mi de adyuvante completo de Freund en la almohadilla plantar, en 2 lotes: a) inyectadas 90 días antes con 1 x 10(6) T. cruzi y b) testigos normales simultáneos. Se midieron, la lesión artrítica macroscópicamente con una escala semicuantitativa, y con microscopía óptica la histopatología de la lesión local y la del corazón, a los 180 días post-infecoión. La magnitud de las lesiones artríticas en las ratas con T. cruzi fue significativamente menor (p < 0.001) que la de los testigos, en todo el período. El infiltrado inflamatorio local, formado por linfocitos, plasmocitos y macrófagos fue significativamente menor (p < 0.001) en las ratas chagásicas, con respecto al de los testigos. Se postula que en las ratas que recibieron T. cruzi la respuesta artrítica menor podría deberse a una competición antigénica con los determinantes del parásito o a mecanismos inmunosupresores que interfieren en la producción de la entidad experimental