Additional information about tick parasitism in Passeriformes birds in an Atlantic Forest in southeastern Brazil

Abstract

The habits of birds make them more or less susceptible to parasitism by certain tick species. Therefore, while some bird species are typically found to be intensely infested, others are relatively unaffected. This study investigated the occurrence of ticks in Passeriformes inhabiting an Atlantic Forest fragment in southeastern Brazil, during the dry and rainy seasons, by means of parasitological indexes and multiple correspondence analysis, to determine the factors that influence tick parasitism in these birds. Data were collected on 2391 ticks, all classified in the Amblyomma genus, from 589 birds. The ticks identified to the species level were A. longirostre, A. nodosum, A. calcaratum, A. parkeri, and A. ovale. Thamnophilidae, Conopophagidae, Thraupidae, Dendrocolaptidae, and Platyrinchidae were the families with the highest prevalence. In terms of parasite intensity, the families Conopophagidae, Thamnophilidae, Thraupidae, Furnariidae, and Pipridae stood out with the highest values. Bird species that are generalists regarding eating habits and habitat occupation tended to have higher parasite loads, as did larger species and those inhabiting the understory. The tick prevalence was higher in the dry season than in the rainy season. The majority of the ticks were collected from the head region, mainly around the eyes and in the nape. Also, this work reports 22 new bird-parasite relations.

Implications of domestic dogs in the epidemiology of Rickettsia parkeri strain Atlantic rainforest and Rangelia vitalii in Southeastern Brazil

“…It is known that humans can be parasitized by adults of A. ovale and A. aureolatum, but at a very low intensity, generally, by only one tick (Barbieri et al, 2014;Saraiva et al, 2014). However, large infestations of these ticks do occur in dogs (Guglielmone et al, 2003a;Ogrzewalska et al, 2012;Martins et al, 2012;Maturano et al, 2015). In this study, more than 30 individuals of A. ovale were collected from a single dog in Area 1.…”

Environmental and ecological factors affecting tick infestation in wild birds of the Americas

“…Our estimation of bird species richness served as a proxy of the true richness of bird communities, but it may be influenced by different bird capture methods used in each study (de Angeli et al 2021 ). In the case studies reviewed, we observed that lower bird infestation by Amblyomma ticks occurred in localities with the highest bird species richness (Ogrzewalska et al 2008 ; Maturano et al 2015 ; Martinez-Sanchez et al 2020 ). Consequently, bird species richness appears to be a determinant of bird infestation in the Americas, which can be affected by habitat disturbance and can lead to changes in infestation patterns (Estades and Temple 1999 ; Ehlers Smith et al 2015 ).…”

Molecular characterization of Amblyomma geoemydae using CO1 mitochondrial gene to validate phenotypic taxonomical evaluation

“…The juvenile tick A. geoemydae population is abundant in soil and vegetational zone during the summer season, so they easily reach the preferred host, Chelonia, Squamata. In the absence of a favourable host, they can survive in new hosts under the same group, such as Coraciiformes (Martínez-Sánchez et al 2020 ) and Carnivora, and few on Galliformes (Rassouli et al 2016 ), Ciconiiformes (Labruna et al 2007 ), Passeriformes, Lagomorpha (Saraiva et al 2012 ), and Artiodactyla (Maturano et al 2015 ). The immature chelonian tick Amblyomma marmoreum infest on tortoises (Allan et al 1998 ).…”