Invasive species and their parasites: eastern cottontail rabbit Sylvilagus floridanus and Trichostrongylus affinis (Graybill, 1924) from Northwestern Italy.

The eastern cottontail Sylvilagus floridanus is a native American lagomorph. Within the genus Sylvilagus, the eastern cottontail is the species with the widest distribution. From 1950s, the species was introduced to several European countries. A rapid territorial expansion of the introduced eastern cottontails has been observed in many areas of Italy. The eastern cottontail has been demonstrated to play a main role as carrier of exotic parasites. To date, three nematode species, exotic in Italian ecosystems, have been reported from introduced S. floridanus. However, its parasite fauna biodiversity is richer in native populations of the American continent. The aim of this work was to further investigate the gastrointestinal parasites of S. floridanus, to evaluate the potential presence of other exotic species. During 2010, 101 hosts were examined, and three nematodes were collected from their digestive tract. Two parasite species (Obeliscoides cuniculi, Trichostrongylus calcaratus) were already reported in Italy; the isolation of Trichostrongylus affinis is instead the first report of this nematode in Italy and in Europe as a whole. This study wants to highlight the great risks related to the introduction of allochthonous species. The impact of the invasion by alien animal species may be particularly severe for public and animal health, due to the potential introduction of new pathogens. The good number of exotic parasites found in introduced eastern cottontails, together with the few sanitary surveys carried out, suggests that an epidemiological survey, with specimens from multiple localities on a wider geographic range, could lead to interesting findings on parasites of native and alien lagomorphs in Europe.