An important contribution to infectious disease emergence in wildlife is environmental degradation driven by pollution, habitat fragmentation, and eutrophication. Amphibians are a wildlife group that is particularly sensitive to land use change, infectious diseases, and their interactions. Residential suburban land use is now a dominant, and increasing, form of land cover in the USA and globally, contributing to increased pollutant and nutrient loading in freshwater systems. We examined how suburbanization affects the infection of green frog (Rana clamitans) tadpoles and metamorphs by parasitic flatworms (Echinostoma spp.) through the alteration of landscapes surrounding ponds and concomitant changes in water quality. Using sixteen small ponds along a forest-suburban land use gradient, we assessed how the extent of suburban land use surrounding ponds influenced echinostome infection in both primary snail and secondary frog hosts. Our results show that the degree of suburbanization and concurrent chemical loading are positively associated with the presence and burden of echinostome infection in both host populations. This work contributes to a broader understanding of how land use mediates wildlife parasitism and shows how human activities at the household scale can have similar consequences for wildlife health as seemingly more intensive land uses like agriculture or urbanization.

中文翻译：

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郊区化增加了蛙蛙和蜗牛的棘皮动物感染。

野生动植物传染病出现的重要原因是污染，生境破碎化和富营养化驱动的环境退化。两栖动物是一个野生动物群体，对土地利用变化，传染病及其相互作用特别敏感。在美国乃至全球，住宅郊区的土地使用现在已成为占主导地位且不断增加的土地覆盖形式，导致淡水系统中污染物和养分含量的增加。我们研究了郊区化如何影响寄生扁虫（棘皮瘤）感染绿蛙（蛙clamitans）的and和变态。spp。）改变池塘周围的景观，并随之改变水质。利用沿森林-郊区土地利用梯度的十六个小池塘，我们评估了池塘周边郊区土地利用的程度如何影响主要蜗牛和次要青蛙寄主的棘口动物感染。我们的结果表明，郊区化程度和同时发生的化学负荷与两个寄主种群中棘突动物感染的存在和负担正相关。这项工作有助于更广泛地了解土地利用如何介导野生生物的寄生性，并表明家庭规模的人类活动如何对野生生物的健康产生与农业或城市化等看似更密集的土地利用类似的后果。