| Summary: | Over 10,000 waterbirds particularly coot (Fulica americana), and scaup (Aythya marila and A. affinis), died between 2002 and 2006 on the Upper Mississippi Fish and Wildlife Refuge. The extent of these die-offs expanded to include Lake Winnibigoshish, Minnesota in 2007 (Minnesota DNR, 2015). These die offs are associated with trematodes that live in the digestive tract of these birds (Skillings, 2005). Coot and ring-necked ducks have similar feeding habits in that they are both able to feed on submerged plant and animal matter; however, coot tend to also feed by dabbling at the water’s surface (Jones, 1940; Cottham 1939). Ring-necked duck is not one of the species documented to have an increased mortality associated with this parasitism event (Minnesota DNR, 2015), which led us to look for differences in the parasite burden of coot and ring-necked ducks from Lake Winnibigoshish. Healthy coot and ring-necked duck were harvested at Lake Winnibigoshish, Minnesota in Fall 2012. Trematodes were extracted from the birds’ digestive tracts and identified morphologically. This identification data was used to investigate the trematode population differences between the collected birds. Several unique species of trematode were found in both bird species. This suggests that, while the feeding habits overlap, other factors allow some trematodes to mature within a bird species while others do not. A greater diversity of parasites was found in the ring-necked duck than in the coot; however, coot possessed the mature individuals of the pathogenic species, Leyogonimus polyoon, which were not present in ring-necked ducks.
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