The Gregarines: The Early Branching Apicomplexa ─ Treatise on Zoology-Anatomy, Taxonomy, Biology

Gregarines are apicomplexans and exclusively parasites of invertebrates. After the basic publication in the Traite de Zoologie by Grasse in 1953, this second edition is proposed to update the knowledge with information provided by new technologies such as electron microscopy, biochemistry and molecular biology and to enlighten their high diversity of adaptation to invertebrate hosts living in a diversity of biotopes. Morphological features, life cycles, host-parasite interactions and taxonomical data are most informative for the understanding of the evolution of the phylum Apicomplexa.

Isabelle Desportes, Fellow of the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris, is known for her work on a wide range of unicellular parasites: Gregarines, Microsporidia, Haplosporidia, Paramyxidia, Myxosporidia. She is the author of chapters on the Phylum Apicomplexa (co-author E. Vivier) and the Phylum Paramyxa (co-author F. O. Perkins) in the Handbook of Protoctists, eds. Margulis, Corliss, Melkonian and Chapman, Jones and Bartlett Publ., 1989 and The Biology of Microsporidia. in: Cryptosporidiosis and Microsporidiosis, eds. Schmidt A. & Petry F., Karger AG, 2000. She was a member of the Nominating Committee of the International Society of Protistologists and of the Editorial board of the European Journal of Protistology,, Acta Protozoologica and ParasiteJoseph Schrevel is Emeritus Professor at the Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris . After his PhD on the biology and electron microscopy of the Gregarines of Polychaetes, he extended his studies on cell biology and biochemistry of other Apicomplexa like Plasmodium the causative agent of malaria, Babesia, different unicellular eukaryotes (Trypanosoma) and mammalian (cardiac and sperm) cells. He was member of the editorial board of: Biology of the Cell (Editor-in-Chief), Parasitology Research, European Journal of Protistology, Journal of Ultrastructure Research and the Malarial Journal. In 1993, he published “The Gregarines” (co- author M.Philippe) in Parasite Protozoa, ed. Kreier J ,volume 4, Academic Press.