Roadmap for nematode control strategies

Can we improve the quantitative understanding of innate and acquired immunity against nematodes in livestock in order to better incorporate this into disease control?
How do parasite communities as a whole respond to human intervention, control methods and environmental changes, as opposed to single genera?
What is the effect of treatment and other control measures, and environment, on immune response of different host species?

Host-nematode interactions are poorly understood in livestock and largely based on the phenomenology of experimental and natural infections.
Influence of nematode infection (and vaccination) on the immune response to other pathogens is largely unexplored.
Studies of the effect of infection dose, host immune status, environment and nutrition on nematode establishment have been performed largely separate and need to be combined to better understand outcomes in the field and realistic farm-level interventions.
The metabolic and pathological costs of immunity might themselves have negative production impacts and optimised (rather than maximal) responses should be sought during the production cycle and in selective breeding programmes but the theoretical and empirical basis for setting these optima is currently inadequate.

Methodological approaches to study the gut environment, microbiota and different nematode stages under in vivo conditions, ex-vivo and in vitro.
More refined studies of mechanisms of innate and acquired immunity in livestock species, including in the field.
Evaluation of the effects of alternative control methods, e.g. plant-based approaches, on different elements of HPE interactions, including nutrition, parasite establishment, and propagule output.

Development and availability of multiplex and NGS technologies to define the whole nema- and pathogenome and also the host immune response (innate and induced). Immunological tools for livestock are far behind those available for rodent models.

Control of nematodes with nutrition, genetics, vaccines and nutraceuticals is being investigated, but their effects on the immune response of infected hosts, and consequently epidemiology, much less so.
Assumed that natural immunity to fluke infections is limited but reasons for this and prospects of surmounting this through vaccination are subject to ongoing research.