Fig. 3

Increased reproductive fitness of HS parasite line in rodents. (A) The ability of cercarial larvae to infect their rodent definitive host is similar for LS and HS lines, in both genetic crosses, as a comparable number of worms were recovered from mice infected with HS and LS parasites after being exposed to the same number of cercariae. (B) In both crosses, the HS parasite line produced significantly more live miracidia (recovered from rodent infected livers) compared to the LS parasites, and therefore (C) HS reproductive fitness (total number of miracidia recovered/total number of female worms) is higher than in LS parasites. NS: No significant difference between the considered groups; *P < 0.05; **P ≤ 0.01; ***P ≤ 0.001