First report on parasites of European beavers in the Slovak Republic
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HELMINTHOLOGY - SHORT COMMUNICATION
First report on parasites of European beavers in the Slovak Republic Júlia Bystrianska 1,2 & Ingrid Papajová 1 & Ľubomír Šmiga 2 & Jindřich Šoltys 1 Igor Majláth 3 & Filip Gomboš 4 & Ján Kleban 5
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Viktória Majláthová 3
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Received: 19 June 2020 / Accepted: 22 October 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract European beaver (Castor fiber L. 1758) is the biggest rodent living in Europe. It is a semi-aquatic animal known for building dams and burrows. European beaver is a potential host for a wide range of parasites and other infectious diseases. In Slovakia, there is an increasing number of beavers but the data about their parasitic fauna are missing. Our work is the first documentation about the beaver’s parasitofauna in Slovakia. In a 1-year study, we collected and examined 19 beaver fecal samples from the vicinity of beaver burrows inhabiting three particular localities at the Danube, Topľa, and Laborec rivers in Slovakia. In these fecal samples, 4 different species of intestinal endoparasites were detected as follows: oocysts of Cryptosporidium, cysts of Giardia, eggs of Stichorchis subtriquetrus, and eggs and larvae of Travassosius rufus. Parasites were confirmed only in samples collected at river Topľa. Based on our results, we can conclude that European beaver can be an important source of parasitic contamination of surface waters especially in the localities shared by people. Keywords Beaver . Protozoans . Helminths . Slovak Republic
Introduction The Eurasian or European Beaver (Castor fiber Linnaeus, 1758) is the biggest rodent living in Europe. It is a semiaquatic animal known for building dams and burrows. Beavers are strictly herbivorous; they defecate droppings directly into the water, thus constituting a potential source of freshwater contamination by parasites (McMaster and McMaster 2001). In Slovakia, European beaver is considered Section Editor: Nawal Hijjawi * Ingrid Papajová [email protected] 1
Institute of Parasitology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Hlinkova 3, 040 01 Košice, Slovak Republic
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University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy in Košice, Komenského 73, 04181 Košice, Slovak Republic
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Institute of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice, Šrobárova 2, 041 54 Košice, Slovak Republic
4
Masaryk University, Faculty of Medicine in Brno, Kamenice 753/5, 625 00 Brno, Czech Republic
5
Grammar School of Leonard Stöckel in Bardejov, Jiráskova 12, 085 70 Bardejov, Slovak Republic
to be a protected species within the denotation of § 33 paragraph 3 of Act No. 543/2002 (Collection of Law on Nature and Landscape Protection 2002). Beavers are potential hosts for a wide range of parasites and other infectious organisms, including those typical of European rodents. A number of infectious organisms are potentially zoonotic and may be scrutinized under the animal health legislation (Girling et al. 2019). Beavers generally have been considered no greater risk where hostspecific parasit
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