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A new lizard malaria parasite Plasmodium intabazwe n. sp. (Apicomplexa: Haemospororida: Plasmodiidae) in the Afromontane Pseudocordylus melanotus (Sauria: Cordylidae) with a review of African saurian…

Overview of attention for article published in Parasites & Vectors, August 2016
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (77th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (83rd percentile)

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Title
A new lizard malaria parasite Plasmodium intabazwe n. sp. (Apicomplexa: Haemospororida: Plasmodiidae) in the Afromontane Pseudocordylus melanotus (Sauria: Cordylidae) with a review of African saurian malaria parasites
Published in
Parasites & Vectors, August 2016
DOI 10.1186/s13071-016-1702-3
Pubmed ID
Authors

Johann van As, Courtney A. Cook, Edward C. Netherlands, Nico J. Smit

Abstract

Saurian malaria parasites are diverse apicomplexan blood parasites including the family Plasmodiidae Mesnil, 1903, and have been studied since the early 1900s. Currently, at least 27 species of Plasmodium are recorded in African lizards, and to date only two species, Plasmodium zonuriae (Pienaar, 1962) and Plasmodium cordyli Telford, 1987, have been reported from the African endemic family Cordylidae. This paper presents a description of a new malaria parasite in a cordylid lizard and provides a phylogenetic hypothesis for saurian Plasmodium species from South Africa. Furthermore, it provides a tabular review of the Plasmodium species that to date have been formally described infecting species of African lizards. Blood samples were collected from 77 specimens of Pseudocordylus melanotus (A. Smith, 1838) from Platberg reserve in the Eastern Free State, and two specimens of Cordylus vittifer (Reichenow, 1887) from the Roodewalshoek conservancy in Mpumalanga (South Africa). Blood smears were Giemsa-stained, screened for haematozoa, specifically saurian malaria parasites, parasite stages were photographed and measured. A small volume was also preserved for TEM studies. Plasmodium and Haemoproteus primer sets, with a nested-polymerase chain reaction (PCR) protocol, were employed to target a fragment of the cytochrome-b (cyt-b) gene region. Resulting sequences of the saurian Plasmodium species' isolates were compared with each other and to other known Plasmodium spp. sequences in the GenBank database. The presence of P. zonuriae in both specimens of the type lizard host C. vittifer was confirmed using morphological characteristics, which subsequently allowed for the species' molecular characterisation. Of the 77 P. melanotus, 44 were parasitised by a Plasmodium species, which when compared morphologically to other African saurian Plasmodium spp. and molecularly to P. zonuriae, supported its description as a new species Plasmodium intabazwe n. sp. This is the first morphological and molecular account of Plasmodium species within the African endemic family Cordylidae from South Africa. The study highlights the need for molecular analysis of other cordylid Plasmodium species within Africa. Future studies should also include elucidating of the life-cycles of these species, thus promoting the use of both morphological and molecular characteristics in species descriptions of saurian malaria parasites.

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X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 9 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 64 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Lithuania 1 2%
Unknown 63 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 11 17%
Researcher 10 16%
Student > Ph. D. Student 9 14%
Student > Bachelor 6 9%
Professor 4 6%
Other 13 20%
Unknown 11 17%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 24 38%
Environmental Science 5 8%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 4 6%
Computer Science 3 5%
Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine 2 3%
Other 13 20%
Unknown 13 20%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 7. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 December 2017.
All research outputs
#4,504,152
of 22,882,389 outputs
Outputs from Parasites & Vectors
#978
of 5,475 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#82,300
of 364,241 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Parasites & Vectors
#24
of 142 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,882,389 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 80th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 5,475 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.7. This one has done well, scoring higher than 81% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 364,241 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 77% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 142 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its contemporaries.