Taxonomia e Ecologia de coccídios: Isospora spp. e Eimeria spp. de aves Silvestres do Brasil e de Portugal

Abstract

Brazil is among the most biodiverse countries in the world, and this biodiversity is evaluated by the size of its territory, transformed, a large amount of endemic species, making it important for investments in bird conservation. Birds are animals of great ecological importance, essential for the maintenance of balance, acting as seed dispersers, pollinating agents, prey regulators and, most importantly, being conservation bioindicators, as they are animals known for their sensitivity to changes in habitats. The main factors related to the extinction of wild species are the degradation of natural environments, introduction of exotic species, caused by overexploitation by humans, impacting not only the fauna, but also the flora and microbiota, and indirectly favoring the appearance and transmission of parasitic diseases. Parasites can play a major role in maintaining this biodiversity, through the maintenance of diversities in ecological communities, thus acting as key-species for this purpose. However, they can also cause decline in natural populations, decreasing so much the level of reproduction of their hosts. Among the different types of parasites, coccidia in birds stand out, they are predominantly intestinal intracellular protozoa, revealing fundamental importance, especially in anthropogenic environments, as birds stressed by human impacts tend to be more susceptible to infection and colonization of coccidia. Thus, coccidia play the role of biomarkers of environmental impacts. Coccidia fit into a diverse and complex group of parasites, highlighting the genera of Isospora Schneider, 1881 e Eimeria Schneider, 1875, which are of greater relevance for parasites of birds of the Passeriformes and Columbiformes orders. In this context, the objective was to analyze feces of wild birds captured in areas of the Atlantic Forest, Parque Nacional do Itatiaia, Parque Nacional da Serra dos Órgãos, preservation and reforestation area of the Instituto Federal de Pinheiral and in the District of Cacaria, Rio de Janeiro, in addition to the feces presented from Portugal, to identify and quantify coccidian parasites present. After the morphological analysis of the found oocysts, molecular analyzes were settled in the viable ones, working on DNA sequence analysis of COI and 18S genes, in addition to phylogenetic analysis. As a result we obtained five articles, three articles with records of new species, one Isospora sp. and two Eimeria spp., a redescription article of an Isospora sp. with new hosts, and an article with redescription of an Eimeria sp. in birds from Portugal.