The University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine

Georgia Veterinary Scholars Program

GVSP Summer 2011 Scholars

Georgia Veterinary Scholar	Faculty Mentor

Rachel Lampley University of Tennessee College Of Veterinary Medicine Class of 2014	Dr. Nicole Gottdenker Department of Pathology UGA College of Veterinary Medicine

Prevalence of parasite infection in raccoons in urban and rural environments

Rachel Lampley, Jusun Hwang, Dana Cole, Nicole Gottdenker

Urbanization can impact the transmission of wildlife parasites by altering factors such as species composition, behavior, and presence of intermediate host species. The objective of this study is to evaluate how urbanization impacts the prevalence and species composition of enteric parasites in raccoons (Procyon lotor). Raccoons are ubiquitous in both urban and rural environments, and thus are an appropriate model to evaluate how urbanization influences wildlife parasite transmission. Raccoons are also an important reservoir host for many parasites, several of which are zoonotic, i.e. Baylisascaris procyonis, or pathogenic to domestic species. Understanding how urbanization influences raccoon parasite prevalence and community composition can contribute to public health strategies by estimating the relative risk of cross-species parasite transmission in urban versus rural environments. We hypothesize that raccoon fecal parasite species prevalence will differ in urban and rural environments as a function of their transmission strategy. We predict that direct life cycle parasites with fecal-oral spread have a higher prevalence in urban populations where aggregation is more likely. Trophically transmitted parasites (requiring intermediate or paratenic hosts) are expected to have a higher prevalence in rural habitats due to loss of intermediate host species in more disturbed urban areas. Regarding preliminary results, 46 fecal samples were collected from raccoon latrines in 2 urban and 2 rural sites in Georgia and examined for parasite ova. Parasite ova were detected in 19/46 samples, with 6 samples showing ova from more than one genus. The proportion of positive samples with parasite ova was not significantly different between two sites, however, parasite species diversity found in the feces were higher in rural sites compared to urban.