Demographic study and identification of parasite fauna recovered in wild rats in Peninsular Malaysia / Nurhalimah Mohd Saad

Nurhalimah , Mohd Saad (2023) Demographic study and identification of parasite fauna recovered in wild rats in Peninsular Malaysia / Nurhalimah Mohd Saad. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaya.

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Abstract

The discovery of parasitic fauna in wild rats in Peninsular Malaysia is very important for scientific research as it involves animal and human health. It also affects humans negatively, including agricultural pests, food spoilage and contamination, and disease transmission to humans, livestock, and domestic animals. Murids or known as rat and mice are widespread in all environments and have a high potential to be in areas where people live. Rat act as reservoir hosts for zoonotic helminths and some ectoparasites. Thus, the purpose of this study is to determine the prevalence of ectoparasites and helminths endoparasite infections found in wild rats by examining the demographic distribution of wild rats from various types of forests and their faunal parasites with a focus to identify zoonotic parasite fauna infections in rats as hosts and to use molecular techniques to confirm the species of cyclophyllidean cestodes. This study covers forest reserves, ecotourism forests/recreational parks, and modified or agricultural forests involving oil palm plantations located in Peninsular Malaysia. Wild rats were captured and parasites were extracted. The infestation and infection rates were calculated while cestode molecular identification was inferred from two markers (18SrDNA and COX1). Collectively, ten species of wild rats were captured with twenty-two fauna parasites species recovered where some of the listed fauna parasites were known as zoonotic species namely, three species of ectoparasites (Laelaps spp., Leptotrombidium sp., and Ixodes granulatus) and five endoparasites species (Capillaria sp., Angiostongylus malaysensis, Raillietina spp., Hymenolepis diminuta and Hydatigera taeniaeformis). Following this, the phylogeny of tapeworms was investigated as vast of information remain unknown particularly with molecular identification of cestodes. All the sequences were successfully amplified with product with total length of 205 and 1202 base pairs (bp), respectively. Four cestode species from the Family Hymenolepididae (Hymenolepis diminuta), Family Taeniidae (Hydatigera parva; Hydatigera taeniaeformis) and Family Davaineidae (Raillietina spp.) were successfully characterized using phylogenetic analyses and haplotype networking. The molecular approaches have made significant progress in detecting complex species and very useful for studying intra-specific variation in helminths, especially the cestode group. In summary, this research will increase public knowledge and awareness of fauna parasite infestation and infections, which are important to human health.

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