# Prospects for genomic surveillance for selection in schistosome parasites

## TL;DR

This paper reviews how genomic surveillance can detect natural selection in schistosome parasites, which could help understand their response to control efforts and environmental changes.

## Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive review of genomic methods for detecting selection in schistosomes and outlines future improvements.

## Key findings

- Genomic surveillance is a promising tool to detect schistosome responses to control efforts.
- Drug resistance, host specificity, and life history traits are key traits influenced by selection.
- Schistosome biology and reproduction complicate genomic analyses of selection.

## Abstract

Schistosomiasis is a neglected tropical disease caused by multiple parasitic Schistosoma species, and which impacts over 200 million people globally, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. Genomic surveillance to detect evidence for natural selection in schistosome populations represents an emerging and promising approach to identify and interpret schistosome responses to ongoing control efforts or other environmental factors. Here we review how genomic variation is used to detect selection, how these approaches have been applied to schistosomes, and how future studies to detect selection may be improved. We discuss the theory of genomic analyses to detect selection, identify experimental designs for such analyses, and review studies that have applied these approaches to schistosomes. We then consider the biological characteristics of schistosomes that are expected to respond to selection, particularly those that may be impacted by control programs. Examples include drug resistance, host specificity, and life history traits, and we review our current understanding of specific genes that underlie them in schistosomes. We also discuss how inherent features of schistosome reproduction and demography pose substantial challenges for effective identification of these traits and their genomic bases. We conclude by discussing how genomic surveillance for selection should be designed to improve understanding of schistosome biology, and how the parasite changes in response to selection.