Lozano, JoãoAlmeida, CristinaVicente, EduardoSebastião, DanielaPalomero Salinero, Antonio MiguelCazapal Monteiro, Cristiana FilipaArias Vázquez, María SolOliveira, ManuelaCarvalho, Luis Madeira dePaz Silva, Adolfo2025-01-232025-01-232024-05-31Lozano, J., Almeida, C., Vicente, E. et al. Assessing the efficacy of the ovicidal fungus Mucor circinelloides in reducing coccidia parasitism in peacocks. Sci Rep 14, 11352 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-61816-72045-2322https://hdl.handle.net/10347/38917The biological control of gastrointestinal (GI) parasites using predatory fungi has been recently proposed as an accurate and sustainable approach in birds. The current study aimed to assess for the first time the efficacy of using the native ovicidal fungus Mucor circinelloides (FMV-FR1) in reducing coccidia parasitism in peacocks. For this purpose, an in vivo trial was designed in the resident peacock collection (n = 58 birds) of the São Jorge Castle, at Lisbon, Portugal. These animals presented an initial severe infection by coccidia of the genus Eimeria (20106 ± 8034 oocysts per gram of feces, OPG), and thus received commercial feed enriched with a M. circinelloides suspension (1.01 × 108 spores/kg feed), thrice-weekly. Fresh feces were collected every 15 days to calculate the coccidia shedding, using the Mini-FLOTAC technique. The same bird flock served simultaneously as control (t0 days) and test groups (t15–t90 days). The average Eimeria sp. shedding in peacocks decreased up to 92% following fungal administrations, with significant reduction efficacies of 78% (p = 0.004) and 92% (p = 0.012) after 45 and 60 days, respectively. Results from this study suggest that the administration of M. circinelloides spores to birds is an accurate solution to reduce their coccidia parasitism.engOpen Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.PeacocksCoccidiaPredatory fungiMucor circinelloidesMini-FLOTACPortugaljournal article10.1038/s41598-024-61816-72045-2322open access