Parasites is an animal or plant that lives in or on a host which is another animal or plant as it obtains nourishment from the host without benefiting or killing the host. Parasites may be characterized as ectoparasites, including ticks, fleas, leeches, and lice which live on the body surface of the host and do not themselves commonly cause disease in the host or endoparasites, which may be either intercellular (inhabiting spaces in the host’s body) or intracellular (inhabiting cells in the host’s body). Intracellular parasites such as bacteria or viruses often rely on a third organism, known as the carrier or vector to transmit them to the host. Malaria, which is caused by a protozoan of the genus Plasmodium transmitted to humans by the bite
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There are true that parasites cause harm to the organism which happen to be their host because they totally depends on the host for getting nutrients and food. But in the other hand, parasites also have many roles which can benefits others such as to the host, their surrounding and also to the environment. For example, parasites as the useful indicator for environment health and anthropogenic impact. This is because they are sensitive to pollutants and environmental disturbances. Over the last 20 years, three main research directions have been shown to be highly promising and relevant, namely parasites as accumulation indicators for selected pollutants, parasites as effect indicators, and the role of parasites interacting with established bioindicators. But the current paper is focuses on the potential use of parasites as indicators of environmental pollution and the interactions with their hosts. In classical ecotoxicological research physiological, behavioral or molecular changes are determined as a response to adverse environmental changes, often due to the presence and effects of pollutants or habitat disturbance. If parasites are considered as effect indicators, applicable approaches mainly focus on direct effects of pollutants on the viability and longevity of free-swimming stages such as Cercariae or on changes in population and community structure. In the sense that parasites are integrative parts of food webs within ecosystems, environmental changes can be earmarked by parasites if one of their developmental stages or one of their hosts is negatively affected. In either situation, such adverse effects result in numerical changes of parasites in changes of biodiversity patterns and associated indices, such as measures of diversity or the ratio between monoxenic and heteroxenic species. Once the research are able to predict
There are true that parasites cause harm to the organism which happen to be their host because they totally depends on the host for getting nutrients and food. But in the other hand, parasites also have many roles which can benefits others such as to the host, their surrounding and also to the environment. For example, parasites as the useful indicator for environment health and anthropogenic impact. This is because they are sensitive to pollutants and environmental disturbances. Over the last 20 years, three main research directions have been shown to be highly promising and relevant, namely parasites as accumulation indicators for selected pollutants, parasites as effect indicators, and the role of parasites interacting with established bioindicators. But the current paper is focuses on the potential use of parasites as indicators of environmental pollution and the interactions with their hosts. In classical ecotoxicological research physiological, behavioral or molecular changes are determined as a response to adverse environmental changes, often due to the presence and effects of pollutants or habitat disturbance. If parasites are considered as effect indicators, applicable approaches mainly focus on direct effects of pollutants on the viability and longevity of free-swimming stages such as Cercariae or on changes in population and community structure. In the sense that parasites are integrative parts of food webs within ecosystems, environmental changes can be earmarked by parasites if one of their developmental stages or one of their hosts is negatively affected. In either situation, such adverse effects result in numerical changes of parasites in changes of biodiversity patterns and associated indices, such as measures of diversity or the ratio between monoxenic and heteroxenic species. Once the research are able to predict