Ording Otter ‘Otter Poo reveals an unexpected role in controlling parasites

Receive an undemined photo of shitty animals infested with green would make teeth to anyone, unless you are an expert in parasitis like Katrina Lohan. When a colleague sent her an instantaneous of a bunch of aqueous excrement with a red firewall at the interior, she was instantly intrigued.

“She sent me this and said to me,” I think it’s a parasite, are you interested in studying the otters of the river? ” And I said to myself: “Ooh, I think it’s a parasite too.

His colleague discovered the SCAT OTTTER on a quay of the SERC campus on the bay of Chesapeake. Scientists know surprisingly little about river otters that live in coastal areas influenced by land, but these predators play a vital role in ecosystems. The study of parasites in their shit would offer a precious overview of their eating habits and the health of their habitat. Thus, Lohan has teamed up with Calli Wise, biological research technician in SERC and the first author of the new study published in the Revue Frontiers in Mammal Science on Thursday, August 14.

Wise was particularly well suited to this study, because she had already conducted research on the latrines of rivers otters. Yes, you read that right, but wipe this image with a little and adorable dependence on your mind. The Otter latrines are mainly land congregation areas, Wise in Gizmodo told. River otters were not only dinner on these hubs but eat, do not play and do not expect it. These animals are nocturnal and semi-aquatic, which makes it difficult to observe them in their natural habitat, but researchers can learn a lot from what they leave in latrines.

Wise and his colleagues chased latrines along 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) from the shore of the Rhode river, a substuary influenced by the tide of the Chesapeake bay. “You are looking for disturbance areas where it seems that an animal could have spent water to land,” said Wise. “In fact, beyond the simple look, my best sense was my nose. You can somehow feel a latrine,” she said. Go represent.

The researchers collected SCAT from 18 active latrines and brought it back to the laboratory. In addition to observing samples under a microscope, they carried out a DNA analysis using the metabcoding. This DNA sequencing technique consists in extracting small DNA extracts, amplifying them, then comparing them to a database of known species of species. This allows researchers to identify the species present in complex organic samples.

“This method has never been used on the SCAT on the left at Latrines in general, for the diet or the parasites,” said Wise. She and her colleagues found DNA from a wide variety of parasites covering six taxonomic classes in the SCAT samples. Most of the species that they identified infecting the prey of river otters, but there were also some who infect themselves.

“The fact that this method provided such a level of resolution that we could not only understand what they ate, but also to see the parasites in their prey, was really cool,” said Lohan. In addition, the results suggest that parasites play a key role in River Otters’ diet. When they infect prey species, their negative impact on the health of the host can facilitate river falls to drive them out, said Lohan. Thus, these predators can eliminate infected individuals from the populations of their prey, but confirming that this will require additional research, she said.