Parasite diversity in grey wolves (Canis lupus) from Tuscany, central Italy: a copromicroscopical investigation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Parasite monitoring is considered an important issue for wildlife conservation as well as for veterinary and public health. In Italy, data on endoparasites of the grey wolf ( Canis lupus ) are still limited. A copro-microscopical study was performed to investigate endoparasites of grey wolf communities in three Apennine natural reserves and a hilly area in northern Tuscany, central Italy. A total of 66 fresh faecal samples were collected and examined using the Mini-FLOTAC technique with a high-density flotation solution. Apparent prevalence and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated for each parasite taxon, while true parasite prevalence rates were assessed for individual wolves identified after molecular analyses in one of the three natural areas (Apuan Alps Regional Park, AARP). Overall, a high prevalence of endoparasites was estimated (92.4%, 95% CI 83.2-97.5), and most samples were found positive for respiratory capillariids (81.8%), i.e., Eucoleus boehmi (66.7%) and Eucoleus aerophilus (31.8%), Sarcocystis spp. (36.4%) and hookworms (21.2%). Physaloptera spp. (7.6%), Toxocara canis (1.5%), Spirocerca lupi (1.5%) Crenosoma vulpis (1.5%), Angiostrongylus vasorum (1.5%), Opistorchis felineus (3%), Alaria alata (1.5%), Taeniids (12.1 %), and Cystoisospora spp. (6.1%) were also identified. Dicrocoelium dendriticum eggs and Demodex spp. mites were detected in few samples. No significant differences emerged between faecal and population prevalence for any of the parasite species identified in AARP. Findings from this study add new information on grey wolf endoparasite infections in Italy and confirm the high prevalence of respiratory capillariids circulating among wild canids in Europe. Our results highlight the important role grey wolves may play in the transmission of these capillariid species between wild and domestic canids as well as of potentially zoonotic parasites in examined areas. Moreover, some endoparasites identified in this study may negatively affect the health of infected wolves.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".