Do skin secretions affect the size of parasites in the host lung?
The size of the adult lungworms that had established in the toads’ lungs
ranged between 1.6 to 5.2 mm (mean ± SD: 3.5 ± 0.5 mm). Invasion-front
lungworms were larger than range-core lungworms, and lungworm size
decreased with an increasing number of nematodes in the lungs (Table S2,
Fig. S2). Toad SUL, treatment (skin secretions intact versus reduced),
and toad origin were uninformative in explaining nematode size.