Abstract
The trematode life cycle, which usually has a highly complex spatial-temporal structure (see chapter 4), can be completed only if the given species possesses elaborate adaptations to its environment. Viewed in this aspect, the entire complex of morphological-functional and biological traits of different life cycle phases may be treated as a united system of adaptations, which has evolved and has been genetically fixed during evolution. However, it should be kept in mind that the adaptations of free-living and dispersal stages (miracidia, cercariae, adolescariae) and those of parasitic ones (parthenitae, metacercariae, maritae) may have an essentially different character. In this respect trematodes provide a good example of the well-known idea of Schmalhausen (1969) about independent evolution of larval and imaginal phases of the development of a species in the case where these phases exist in different environments and have different functional roles in supporting the species existence.
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