Parasitic infection of Cobitis elongatoides Băcescu & Mayer, 1969 by zoonotic metacercariae Clinostomum complanatum (Rudolphi, 1814)

An infection of zoonotic Clinostomum complanatum metacercariae with potential human transmission was recorded close to fish farms in the Tisa River Basin of Slovakia and Ukraine. The prevalence varied from 19.4% to 81.3%, and the intensity of infection varied from 7 to 41. The results of a generalized linear model predicted a positive trend for the Cobitis elongatoides host and a standard length and intensity of infection, with females having a higher number of parasites. However, no significant impact was found of the intensity of infection on Clark's condition of the host. The metacercariae were primarily located in the anterior part of the host's body. Our study also showed significant evidence that water velocity affects the number of C. complanatum metacercariae, regardless of the host's (Cobitis) microhabitat.     

Influence of evapotranspiration assessment on the accuracy of moisture transport modeling under the conditions of sprinkling irrigation in the south of Ukraine

ABSTRACT

The paper presents the results of computational experiments for evaluating the impact of different evapotranspiration assessment methods usage on the accuracy of soil moisture dynamics simulation for the conditions of sprinkling irrigation. We consider a differential one-dimensional model of moisture transport stated in terms of water head which uses as an initial data the estimates of evapotranspiration according to the methods of Ivanov, Shtoiko, Penman–Monteith and SEBAL. The differential moisture transport model was discretized using the finite-difference scheme. Its unknown parameters values were found by solving an inverse problem using the metaheuristic particle swarm optimization algorithm. We perform water head modeling accuracy assessment using different methods of evapotranspiration evaluation along with their linear combination. The Ivanov’s method was found to be the most accurate in the conditions of soybean growing in the south of Ukraine under sprinkling irrigation while linear combination of four considered methods gives an additional increase of accuracy by 6.5%.