Philippe Brémond

TL;DR: It is confirmed that a proto-Biomphalaria glabrata gave rise to all African species through a trans-Atlantic colonization of Africa, and interesting patterns occur regarding schistosome susceptibility: the most susceptible hosts belong to a single clade, and several susceptible Neotropic species are sister groups to apparently refractory species, and some basal lineages are susceptible.

TL;DR: Schistosoma mansoni is the most widespread of the human-infecting schistosomes, present in 54 countries, predominantly in Africa, but also in Madagascar, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Neotropics as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: Examination of the consequences of selfing and bottlenecks on genetic polymorphism using microsatellite markers in 14 natural populations of the hermaphrodite freshwater snail Bulinus truncatus revealed an unexpectedly high levels of genetic variation.

TL;DR: This work focuses on the freshwater snail Biomphalaria pfeifferi, the intermediate host of Schistosoma mansoni, and indicates that host consanguinity may affect prevalence through the genetic mechanisms involved in resistance.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors studied variation at 8 polymorphic microsatellite loci in 30 populations of Biomphalaria pfeifferi and found that extreme low variation was found within all populations studied, which may partly result from high selfing rates.