6th Annual Judith Ramaley Celebration of Research and Creative Scholarship
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Poster #37 Intestinal parasites of Martes pennanti
Patrick Foote, Matthew Greatens, and Michelle Raths
Faculty Mentor: Kimberly Bates Intestinal parasite populations of fisher (Martes pennanti) have not been studied since 1979. Since then, the numbers of fisher have elevated drastically in the central and southern parts of Wisconsin but have dropped in the north. One of the possible reasons for this decrease in the north is the potential that parasites have increased in those areas. With the help of Dr. Michelle Michalski and the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh, parasites were collected from the hearts, lungs, intestinal tracts, and kidneys of 100 legally harvested fisher carcasses. The University of Winona dissected the intestinal tracts and kidneys to identify parasites. To do this, the kidneys were sliced and checked for the presence of worms. Then the intestinal tract was cut open from the beginning of the small intestine to the end of the large intestine. The contents of the intestines were then run through a four-layers of varying molecular weight sieves and washed with water. The retentate from each of the sieves were collected individually and examined for parasites. If any parasites were found, they were preserved in 70% ethanol and stored for later clearing, staining, and mounting. Each of the parasitological findings from the fisher’s were recorded into a data table along with which county the fisher was from, whether it was urban or rural, whether it was trapped or hunted, and the sex of the fisher. Currently we have analyzed 98/100 intestines. Once all the data has been collected, prevalence and intensity of parasites will be analyzed and compared to the previous research done. In addition, the data may be used to correlate the increase or decrease in fisher populations in Wisconsin. |
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