Chasing intermediate hosts of Echinococcus multilocularis at the southern edge of its European distribution using red fox stomach content analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Echinococcus multilocularis ( Em ) is a Taeniidae cestode circulating among canids (definitive hosts) and among voles (intermediate hosts). Humans can develop alveolar echinococcosis (AE) following egg ingestion. In Italy, Em is present in red foxes ( Vulpes vulpes ) from the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol Region, with reports in canids from Liguria (wolf, Canis lupus , and domestic dog, Canis lupus familiaris ) and Tuscany (wolf and red fox) Regions. The first autochthonous case of human AE was recently confirmed in the Province of Bolzano. Despite its relevance, the intermediate hosts maintaining the Em life cycle in this area have never been identified. This study aimed to fill this knowledge gap by collecting ingested rodents from the stomachs of 148 legally culled foxes across the Province of Bolzano. For 142 prey items, species was ascertained from tissue DNA using a PCR of a 350 bp fragment of cytb mitochondrial gene. Positivity to Em was investigated by RT-PCR and conventional PCR on organ tissues from 97 rodents targeting a 69 bp fragment of cob and a 126 bp fragment of nad2 mitochondrial genes, respectively. Microtus arvalis was the most common prey rodent in terms of both frequency in foxes (20.8%; 30/144) and total rodent prey items (81.7%; 116/142). Other prey species included nine Arvicola amphibius , five Microtus lavernedii , two M . subterraneus , one M . liechtensteini , six Clethrionomys glareolus , one Apodemus flavicollis and two Ap . sylvaticus . Only 3/97 rodents were Em -positive ( M. arvalis ; 3/85) in two Em -positive red foxes. Prevalence in M. arvalis was estimated at 0.035 (95% CI: 0.008-0.103). Further research is required to explain why Em distribution is limited to this area in the eastern Italian Alps despite the spatial contiguity to hyperendemic foci.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 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".