Helminth metacommunity structure of wild rodents in a preserved area of the Atlantic Forest, Southeast Brazil

Abstract

The helminth fauna and metacommunity structure of eight sympatric sigmodontine rodents were investigated at the Serra dos Órgãos National Park, an Atlantic Forest reserve located in the State of Rio de Janeiro, southeast Brazil. Rodents of the species Abrawayaomys ruschii, Akodon montensis, Blarinomys breviceps , Delomys dorsalis, Oligoryzomys flavescens, Oligoryzomys nigripes, Oxymycterus quaestor and Thaptomys nigrita were found infected with helminths. Akodon montensis presented the highest total helminth species richness, with six different species of helminths. The nematode Stilestrongylus lanfrediae was the most abundant and prevalent helminth species observed. The host-parasite network analysis showed little interactions among host species. Akodon montensis seems to act as a keystone-species in the rodent community. This species shared the nematodes Stilestrongylus aculeata with A. ruschii and Protospirura numidica criceticola with T. nigrita, and the cestode Rodentolepis akodontis with D. dorsalis. The congeners host species O. flavescens and O. nigripes shared the nematodes Guerrerostrongylus zetta and S. lanfrediae. The rodents B. breviceps and O. quaestor did not share any helminths with other hosts. The helminth metacommunity showed a random pattern on both infracommunity and component community levels, indicating different responses by each helminth species to the environmental gradient.

Helminth Community Structure of Three Sigmodontine Rodents in the Atlantic Forest, Southern Brazil

“…Moreover, host specificity was found in most of the helminth species, except for the nematode G. zetta, which occurred in the three hosts. The helminth species found in this study had previously been reported in sigmodontine rodents by Gomes et al (2003), Simões et al (2011), Kuhnen et al (2012), Panisse et al (2017) and Cardoso et al (2018), except for S. rolandoi. This species, found in the rodent E. russatus, was previously described in Boullosa et al (2019).…”

“…Rodents are commonly used as models in ecological studies of host-parasite interactions and parasite communities (Püttker et al 2008, Simões et al 2011, Cardoso et al 2018. Among parasites, helminths are an excellent group for such studies, due to the characteristics of their transmission.…”

“…However, regarding the wild rodents of the Neotropics, there is a great lack of studies considering helminth's faunas and community structures. Some of the previous studies which focused on helminth's fauna and community structure of the sigmodontines Akodon montensis Thomas 1913, Oligoryzomys nigripes Olfers, 1818 (Püttker et al 2008, Simões et al 2011, Panisse et al 2017, Cardoso et al 2018 and Euryoryzomys russatus Wagner, 1848 (Panisse et al 2017) were carried out in the Atlantic Forest. However, only two were developed in the state of Santa Catarina, southern Brazil.…”

Helminth Community Structure of Two Sigmodontine Rodents in Serra Dos Órgãos National Park, State of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

“…The random pattern observed in the other component communities analysed could be related to intrinsic characteristics between hosts and parasites in each area. The analysis of the metacommunity structure of the helminths including all the sigmodontine rodent species in Petrópolis also indicated a random pattern of helminth species distribution along the host gradient (Cardoso et al 2018). In the previous study carried out in PARNASO-Teresópolis and also in several fragments nearby (Cardoso et al 2016) a weak nested structure was recorded for the helminth community of A. montensis and O. nigripes with dominance of S. aculeata and S. lanfrediae.…”

Metacommunity Structure of Helminths of Necromys Lasiurus (Rodentia: Sigmodontinae) in Different Land Use Areas in the Brazilian Cerrado

“…However, some of them evaluated the influence of biotic and abiotic factors on parasite parameters such as abundance, intensity, and prevalence; the studies indicated that the kind of habitat, season, and host characteristic might affect some parasite species (Pu¨ttker et al, 2008;Sim˜oes et al, 2010;Cardoso et al, 2016). There is only one report so far on the patterns of metacommunity structure for helminths of Neotropical rodents (Cardoso et al, 2018) and another one for a Neotropical marsupial (Costa-Neto et al, 2018).…”