Soil humus as a factor conditioning the habitat of<i>Bulinus globosus</i>(morelet) in Zaria City, Nigeria

Ebele, S.; Smith, V. G. F.

doi:10.1080/10934529009375600

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Therefore, medium sized snails are best suited to withstand desiccation on the soil surface because of a more favourable aperture size/weight ratio (Hira, 1968;Diaw et al, 1988). Secondly, humid soils offer better survival chances (Ohlweiler & Kawano, 2001;Kalinda et al, 2018a) although aerobic conditions remain a prerequisite (Chu et al, 1967a;Coles, 1969;Betterton, 1984;Ebele & Smith, 1990;Thomas & Daldorph, 1991). This explains why survival rates are lower in wet mud and places exposed to sunlight (Chu et al, 1967c;Hira, 1968;Van Aardt & Steytler, 2007) and why they increase when IH snails bury in moist mud (Chu et al, 1967a;Kalinda et al, 2018b).…”

Section: The Effect Of Climatic Factors and Waterbody Characteristics On Snail Distributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A call for standardised snail ecological studies to support schistosomiasis risk assessment and snail control efforts

et al. 2021

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Freshwater snails act as intermediate hosts (IH) for schistosomiasis, a tropical disease affecting over 200 million people worldwide. Despite their medical importance, an extensive understanding of IH snail ecology remains absent. Especially data on the tolerance limits to different abiotic factors is fragmented and incomplete. Consequently, the construction of accurate species distribution models to identify snail habitats and guide targeted snail control efforts remains difficult. Here, we compiled a summary on the tolerance limits to abiotic factors of African IH snails of human schistosomiasis. A systematic search on Web of Science, Pubmed, and Embase identified 45 relevant studies. Synthesis of these studies indicates that research efforts differ greatly between IH snail species, life stages and abiotic factors. The importance of each abiotic factor in determining snail presence and abundance is discussed. Furthermore, attention was drawn to knowledge gaps and the lack of standardised experimental designs, which impedes comparisons between studies. This in turn prevents us from making firm conclusions and calls for best practices adopted by all malacologists. In doing so, IH snail ecological data could serve as a basis to assess schistosomiasis risk and guide snail control efforts in order to support schistosomiasis control.

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