Significant morphological but little molecular differences between Trypanosoma of rodents from Alaska

• Main Authors: Laakkonen, J., Smith, A., Hildebrandt, K., Niemimaa, J., Henttonen, H.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Society of Parasitologists 2005
• Subjects: Arctic; Lemmus trimucronatus; Alaska
• Online Access: https://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/id/eprint/8161/

We examined blood smears of 173 rodents and 33 shrews captured at 4 sites in the Gates of the Arctic National Park, northern Alaska, in summer 2002. Trypanosoma spp. were detected in the plasma of 5 Microtus oeconomus, 4 Microtus miurus, and 1 Lemmus trimucronatus. The trypomastigote morphology from different individuals of M. oeconomus caught at the same site and of M. miurus from different sites varied significantly. The 4 DNA sequences obtained from the blood smear positive samples contained 2 different haplotypes very similar to each other and to that of Trypanosoma microti. Of possible vectors of blood parasites, the flea Amalaraeus dissimilis was collected from M. miurus.