Balancing sample sizes in parasitology: A standardized experimental infection method using faecal parasite eggs and aquatic intermediate hosts.

Sara M Rodríguez, Katherine Burgos-Andrade, Valentina Escares-Aguilera, Bárbara Gutiérrez, Nelson Valdivia

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Article in Current research in parasitology & vector-borne diseases, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Sara M RodríguezDepartamento de Ecología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción, Concepción, Chile.

Katherine Burgos-AndradeInstituto de Ciencias Marinas y Limnológicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile.

Valentina Escares-AguileraInstituto de Ciencias Marinas y Limnológicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile.

Bárbara GutiérrezInstituto de Ciencias Marinas y Limnológicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile.

Nelson ValdiviaInstituto de Ciencias Marinas y Limnológicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Balancing sample sizes between infected and uninfected hosts is a major challenge in ecological parasitology, particularly for intermediate hosts in complex life cycles. In natural populations, these hosts often accumulate parasites as they grow, making it difficult to obtain comparable numbers of infected and uninfected individuals across size classes. Here, we present a standardized and repeatable protocol to experimentally infect and re-infect intermediate hosts using parasite eggs obtained directly from fresh faeces of definitive hosts. We evaluated this approach in a marine host-parasite system involving the acanthocephalan

Indexed as

AcanthocephalansBalancing samplesExperimental infectionFaecal egg countIntermediate hostsSeagulls

Identifiers

PMID42370062

DOI10.1016/j.crpvbd.2026.100364

PMCPMC13294868

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.