Increase of rate of egg production with growth in some intestinal nematodes of sheep and horses

Abstract

Ractliffe L. H. & LeJambre L. F. 1971. Increase of rate of egg production with growth in some intestinal nematodes of sheep and horses. International Journal for Parasitology, 1: 153–156. There is a positive relationship between the number of uterine eggs and size of worm in Chabertia ovina, Haemonchus contortus, Oesophagostomum columbianum, and Para-scaris equorum, and a linear relationship between the weight of the egg sac and the weight of the remainder of the worm in Oxyuris equi. These relationships imply that the rate of egg production increases with growth. Consequently it would be expected that (a) the total egg output of a population of parasites would be more closely related to the total weight of the worms than to their number and (b) there would be a logarithmic increase with time in the egg output of a newly infected host even if the increase in the number of worms harbored by the host were only linear with time.