Abstract
BackgroundA century of debates on the taxonomy of members of the Metastrongyloidea Molin, 1861 led to many reclassifications. Considering the inconstant genus assignation and lack of genetic data, the main aim of this study was to support the validity of the genus Perostrongylus Schlegel, 1934, previously considered a synonym of Aelurostrongylus Cameron, 1927, based on new molecular phylogenetic data and to understand its evolutionary relationships with other metastrongyloid nematodes.ResultsSpecimens of lungworm collected from European badgers in Germany, Romania and Bosnia and Herzegovina were morphologically and molecularly (rDNA, cox1) characterized. From a phylogenetic standpoint, Perostrongylus is grouped with high support together with the genera Filaroides van Beneden, 1858 and Parafilaroides Dougherty, 1946 and includes probably two species: Perostrongylus falciformis (Schlegel, 1933), a parasite of Meles meles in Europe and P. pridhami (Anderson, 1962), a parasite of Neovison vison in North America. Perostrongylus and Aelurostrongylus are assigned to different clades. Aelurostrongylus becomes a monotypic genus, with the only species Aelurostrongylus abstrusus (Railliet, 1898). In addition, we provide morphological and morphometric data for the first-stage (L1), second-stage (L2), and third-stage (L3) larvae of P. falciformis and describe their development in experimentally infected Cornu aspersum snails. The pathological and histopathological lesions in lungs of infected European badgers are also described. This is the first record of P. falciformis in Romania.ConclusionsMolecular phylogenetic and morphological data support the validity of the genus Perostrongylus, most probably with two species, P. falciformis in European badgers and P. pridhami in minks in North America. The two genera clearly belong to two different clades: Perostrongylus is grouped together with the genera Filaroides and Parafilaroides (both in the family Filaroididae Schulz, 1951), whereas Aelurostrongylus belongs to a clade with no sister groups.
Highlights
A century of debates on the taxonomy of members of the Metastrongyloidea Molin, 1861 led to many reclassifications
Out of the 32 examined European badgers, P. falciformis was found in 13 animals from all countries (Table 1)
With the exception of A. abstrusus, other species previously assigned to genus Aelurostrongylus, namely A. brauni and A. fengi were subsequently transferred to different genera
Summary
A century of debates on the taxonomy of members of the Metastrongyloidea Molin, 1861 led to many reclassifications. A century of debates on the taxonomy of members of the superfamily Metastrongyloidea Lane, 1917 led to many reclassifications of these nematodes within a variety of families, subfamilies, genera and species [1, 2]. The genus Protostrongylus Kamensky, 1905 was erected [7] and Strongylus abstrusus transferred to this new genus (as Protostrongylus pusillus), containing two other species, i.e. Protostrongylus rufescens (Leuckart, 1865), the type-species, and Protostrongylus commutatus (Diesing, 1851) [as Protostrongylus terminalis (Passerini, 1884)]. Cameron [3] included only the type-species A. abstrusus in the newly erected genus
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