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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

CP10.2: Wildlife 2: Mammals, Birds, Lizards & Wetas 5 min talks
Location: Lecture Theatre 3
Session Chair: Haylee Crawford-Weaver, DCCEEW
Session Chair: Nicholas Fountain-Jones, University of Tasmania

Presentation 5

From land to the sea: First detection of Neospora caninum in an Australian marine mammal, Neophoca cinerea (Australian Sea Lion)

Michelle Power¹, Mariel Fulham², Rachael Gray²

1: School of Natural Sciences, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia; 2: Sydney School of Veterinary Science, Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia

Parasitism poses significant health challenges for the endangered Australian sea lion (Neophoca cinerea). Australian sea lion pups experience a high prevalence of the endemic hookworm (Uncinaria sanguinis) which is associated with reduced pup body condition and increased mortality. We examined faecal DNA from Australian sea lion pups (n = 63) to further explore host parasite interactions with an emphasis on apicomplexan parasitism. Screening of samples using an Apicomplexan genera PCR targeting the 18S rDNA gene resulted in 51 of the 63 DNA positive samples. DNA sequencing revealed a single parsasite sequence with high similarity between samples from Australian sea lion pups (99.9%) across 900 basepairs. A BlastN Seach identified the sequence from Australian sea lion pups to be 99.7% similar to Neopsora caninum. This first report of N. caninum in Australian sea lion pups demonstrates the environmental continuum that connects parasites associated with terrestrial animals to marine wildlife, and the significance of One Health for wild marine species. Understanding of the impact of N. caninum, and the significance of co-infection with hookworm, for pup health is important for Autstralian sea lion conservation and future management of this endangered marine mammal.