Archives

Agulu Lake is one of 366 geo-referenced Schistosomiasis endemic foci in Nigeria. There is a dearth
of publication on the gastropod intermediate hosts for larval stages of Schistosoma haematobium
that cause urinary Schistosomiasis in Agulu. Gastropod abundance was determined by sampling
eight stations on Agulu Lake shorelines from November 2012 to October 2013, using scoop net
sampling and hand picking techniques, supplemented by 20 minutes manual search over aquatic
plants and suspended materials in each sampled quadrat. Total abundance of gastropods
encountered was 6866, which comprised Bulinus globosus 1957(28.5%), B. truncatus 1832(26.7%),
B. forskalii 964(14%), Lymnaea natalensis 2089(30.4%) and Melanoides tuberculatus 24(0.4%).
Mean seasonal density of gastropod/m2 was 4.81±3.07 for dry season and 3.77±2.63 for rainy
season while spatial density for Agulu and Nri arms of the lake were 5.1±4.43 and 3.48±2.3,
respectively. Generally, gastropod density was strongly and positively correlated with calcium ions
but negatively correlated with water transparency, depth, dissolved oxygen and pH. However, water
temperature showed little influence on gastropod abundance. Further work on molecular
identification of the gastropods and their Schistosome infectivity status is needed because of humanwater-
contact activities in Agulu Lake and its environs.
Keywords: Agulu Lake, water parameters, Gastropod density, Schistosomiasis