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Euro-Asian hybrids of Echinococcus multilocularis from red foxes in northern and northeastern Poland result from secondary contact between long-isolated populations

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Abstract

We investigated the mitochondrial genetic diversity of Echinococcus multilocularis in red foxes from northern and northeastern Poland, and tested the hypothesis that the presence of Asian haplotypes in Poland stems from their introduction from Northeast Asia to Eastern Europe. We targeted the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene (cox1) of 263 tapeworms from 59 red foxes hunted in selected districts of Pomorskie, Warmińsko-Mazurskie, and Podlaskie Voivodships. We calculated several measures of genetic variation, and constructed median-joining haplotype networks and a RelTime timetree. In addition, a novel alignment-free computational method was applied: the 4D-Dynamic Representation of DNA/RNA Sequences combined with K-means clustering. PCR and sequencing were successful for 252 tapeworms. We identified six haplotypes, three of which were novel. The mismatch distribution was bimodal. The fixation index (FST) between the European and Asian haplogroups was 0.97. Our findings suggest secondary contact between two previously isolated metapopulations with distinct genetic lineages. Clustering patterns appear to support the hypothesis that Asian variants of E. multilocularis spread into northeastern Poland as a consequence of multiple introductions of raccoon dogs from the Soviet Far East to Eastern Europe.

Data availability

The 252 complete coding sequences of the cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene (1,608 bp) obtained in this study were submitted to GenBank and received accessions PV055184–PV055435.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their utmost gratitude to Adrianna Kilikowska, WSB Merito University in Gdańsk, for insightful comments and suggestions that enabled us to improve the original draft. Many thanks to Ioannis Kontogeorgos for creating Figure 1.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Centre grant no. 2020/37/B/NZ7/03934.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Tropical Parasitology, Department of Tropical Medicine and Parasitology, Institute of Maritime and Tropical Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, Powstania Styczniowego 9B, 81-519, Gdynia, Poland

    Paweł Gładysz & Anna Lass

  2. Department of Radiological Informatics and Statistics, Medical University of Gdańsk, 80-210, Gdańsk, Poland

    Dorota Bielińska-Wąż

  3. Department of Nuclear Medicine, Medical University of Gdańsk, 80-210, Gdańsk, Poland

    Piotr Wąż

  4. National Veterinary Research Institute, Partyzantów 57, 24-100, Puławy, Poland

    Małgorzata Samorek-Pieróg & Jacek Karamon

Authors

  1. Paweł Gładysz
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  2. Dorota Bielińska-Wąż
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  3. Piotr Wąż
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  4. Małgorzata Samorek-Pieróg
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  5. Jacek Karamon
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  6. Anna Lass
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Contributions

P. Gładysz : Conceptualisation, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Validation, Visualisation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing. D. Bielińska-Wąż : Formal Analysis, Methodology, Software, Visualisation, Writing – Review & Editing. P. Wąż : Formal Analysis, Methodology, Software, Visualisation, Writing – Review & Editing. M. Samorek-Pieróg : Resources. J. Karamon : Resources, Writing – Review & Editing. A. Lass : Conceptualisation, Funding Acquisition, Project Administration, Resources, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to
Paweł Gładysz or Anna Lass.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Gładysz, P., Bielińska-Wąż, D., Wąż, P. et al. Euro-Asian hybrids of Echinococcus multilocularis from red foxes in northern and northeastern Poland result from secondary contact between long-isolated populations.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-40313-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-40313-z

Keywords

  • Alignment-free method
  • Alveolar echinococcosis
  • Asian origin
  • Phylogeography

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