Skip to main content
ARS Home » Northeast Area » Beltsville, Maryland (BARC) » Beltsville Agricultural Research Center » Animal Parasitic Diseases Laboratory » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #324043

Title: Broadening diversity in the Arostilepis species complex: Arostrilepis kontrimavichusi in the western red-backed vole Myodes californicus from temperate latitudes of the Pacific Northwest, North America

Author
item MAKARIKOV, ARSENY - Russian Academy Of Sciences
item Hoberg, Eric

Submitted to: Systematic Parasitology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 5/24/2016
Publication Date: 5/24/2016
Citation: Makarikov, A.A., Hoberg, E.P. 2016. Broadening diversity in the Arostilepis species complex: Arostrilepis kontrimavichusi in the western red-backed vole Myodes californicus from temperate latitudes of the Pacific Northwest, North America. Systematic Parasitology. 93(5):467-477.

Interpretive Summary: Basic information about species composition (diversity) is an essential foundation for understanding and exploring the processes of evolution and ecology that determine structure of the biosphere. Information about diversity provides a pathway to identify and document changes in the biosphere over time that emerge from ecological perturbation, particularly outcomes related to accelerating climate warming. We recognize and describe a new species of tapeworm in small mammals from Oregon, and place this parasite in the context of diversity for a larger group of parasites in which distribution has historically been influenced strongly by shifts in climate. We contribute to the understanding of large scale processes that influence the biosphere. Knowledge of species diversity within the Arostrilepis assemblage of tapeworms will be applied by parasitologists, mammalogists and biogeographers in academic and government research about the nature of diversity and expanding environmental change of consequence for natural and managed systems.

Technical Abstract: Specimens originally identified provisionally as Hymenolepis horrida (= Arostrilepis horrida) in Myodes californicus from near the Pacific coastal zone of southern Oregon are revised. Specimens in western red-backed voles represent an undescribed species of Arostrilepis, contributing to recognition and resolution of a broadening complex encompassing cryptic diversity for these hymenolepidid tapeworms distributed across the Holarctic region. Consistent with recent studies defining diversity in the genus, the form, dimensions, and spination (pattern, shape, and size) of the cirrus are diagnostic. Among 12 nominal congeners, specimens of A. kontrimavichusi n. sp. are further distinguished by the relative position and length of the cirrus sac, arrangement of the testes and relative size of the external seminal vesicle and seminal receptacle. Specimens from Oregon voles represent the fifth endemic hymenolepidid in this genus from the Nearctic. Host range for the North American assemblage of species includes Cricetidae (Arvicolinae and Neotominae), Heteromyidae, Geomyidae and rarely Sciuridae.