Since the earliest settled communities, gastropod molluscs have been crop pests, as well as a source of disease afflicting agriculturalists and their livestock. Trends such as global warming, increasing population pressure and rapid transportation andadmixture of alien species to areas devoid of natural competitors/predators, are exacerbating this situation in both developed and developing countries. Drugs provide effective, if often expensive, medical and veterinary treatments, against gastropod vectored disease. However, mounting evidence suggests increasing drug resistance by parasites, prompting calls for detailed investigations of gastropod host-parasite interactions with the aim of producing novel interventions. Similarly, chemical treatmentof crop pests is expensive, time consuming, and unpredictable, often affected by vagaries of weather/microclimate. The majority of chemical and biological control programmes rely upon either empirical approaches or an imperfect knowledge of gastropod host-parasite interactions. Here we review the potential of new genomic approaches to elucidate the molecular basis of these interactions, and suggest how they might contribute towards more targeted control.
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