Australian helminths in Australian rodents: an issue of biodiversity

The Australian public as well as Australian funding bodies are generally unsympathetic to native murids, rats and mice, in spite of the fact that 36% have either become extinct or critically endangered since European settlement. The endemic Australian parasites of these rats and mice have been even less sympathetically regarded. Prior to 1958 very little work was carried out on the helminths of Australian rodents and little more is known today. Records are known from only 28% of the extant host species, comprising some 109 species of helminth identified at least to generic level. The rodents invaded Australia from the north, perhaps through New Guinea in at least two separate waves, 5-8 then about 1 million years ago. The parasites they brought with them have adapted and speciated and there has been some host switching between rodent groups and between rodents and the Australian marsupials. This is illustrated particularly in the Trichostrongyloidea. The origins of the rodents from Southeast Asia down the Indonesian island chain are reflected in the presence of the nematode genus Tikusnema in both Australia and Indonesia, and Cyclodontostomum purvisi across Southeast Asia and into New Guinea. Hydromys chrysogaster, the Australian water-rat, illustrates how the biogeographical influences of the host's distribution and lifestyle can affect its parasite fauna. Most of the research to date is merely indicative of where more data are needed. The links between Australian and New Guinean helminth fauna, as well as the links between rodent and marsupial hosts and their fauna, cannot be determined without further research.