ECOLOGICAL AND FAUNAL STUDIES OF HELMINTHS OF WETLAND BIRDS IN UZBEKISTAN

Abstract

The importance of wetlands for humanity is very high. They provide a huge number of people in the world with their water and biological resources, determine the stability of local climatic conditions, and serve as habitats for many sedentary and migratory waterfowl and semiaquatic birds. In the reservoirs of the transboundary rivers Amudarya, Syrdarya and Zarafshan (within Uzbekistan), numerous species of wetland birds are concentrated, which are poorly studied in terms of parasitology. The paper presents some features of the helminth fauna in wetland birds of NorthWestern, Central and North-Eastern Uzbekistan. The material for this work was the collection of parasitic worms of waterfowl, marsh and semiaquatic birds caught in the water bodies of the Amudarya, Syrdarya and Zarafshan river basins (within Uzbekistan) during the hunting season (2018–2022). More than 750 birds belonging to 40 species, 26 genera, 15 families and 9 orders were collected and studied. The studied birds turned out to be infected with helminths of 4 classes, Cestoda, Trematoda, Acanthocephala and Nematoda. One hundred seventeen species were identified: 29 species belonged to the cestode class, the trematode class was represented by 67 species, the nematode class, by 27 species, and the acanthocephalan class by 4 species. Original data on the structure of the helminth fauna of 9 orders of birds were presented. Various transmission ways of helminths to the final hosts were elucidated.