Effect of dietary guild (frugivory and insectivory) and other host characteristics on ectoparasite abundance (mite and nycteribiid) of chiropterans

Abstract

Abstract:Ectoparasites are an important factor in bat health due to emergent diseases and their associated threats to global public health. The diverse foraging habits of bats expose them to different surfaces which may influence ectoparasite infestations. In spite of these, most studies often overlook dietary specialisations when observing ectoparasite loads. The present paper quantitatively investigates whether foraging strategies as well as other host characteristics (sex, age, trunk and patagial area) influence ectoparasite (nycteribiids and mites) loads of bats. Ectoparasite counts and morphometric data were taken from mist net captures of bats. We then developed and compared models for modeling bat ectoparasite abundance under various distributions using generalised linear models. The negative binomial distribution consistently proved to be adequate for modeling mite, nycteribiid and total ectoparasite abundance based on information-theoretic approaches. Generally, females and frugivores had higher ectoparasite loads conditional on bat sex and diet, respectively. Contrary to nycteribiid abundance, mite abundance was positively related to patagial area. Thus, our findings suggest that dietary guild, sex and patagia of hosts (as well as age-nycteribiid abundance) are significant determinants of ectoparasite abundance.

Gill monogenean communities (Platyhelminthes, Monogenea, Dactylogyridae) of butterflyfishes from tropical Indo-West Pacific Islands

“…In our study, we did not find any correlation between parasite intensity or richness and feeding specificity, since one of the species with the most diverse monogenean communities, C. trifascialis, is among the most specialized, feeding almost exclusively on Acropora hyacinthus (Pratchett, 2005). Some authors have proposed that hosts with a larger depth range would encounter more parasite species and therefore have richer parasite faunas (Luque et al 2004), however this was not the case for the dactylogyrids communities. Although some authors disagree, host species with large geographical ranges could have greater chances of acquiring new parasite species via colonization (Simková et al 2001;Poulin, 2004).…”

“…Such is the case for endoparasites in butterflyfish where host diet was a good predictor of parasite richness (Morand et al 2000). A recent study has showed that host diet affected ectoparasite communities in bats due to different host fitness directly related to host diet (Luguterah and Lawer, 2015). In our study, we did not find any correlation between parasite intensity or richness and feeding specificity, since one of the species with the most diverse monogenean communities, C. trifascialis, is among the most specialized, feeding almost exclusively on Acropora hyacinthus (Pratchett, 2005).…”

Diversity of fruit bats (Pteropodidae) and their ectoparasites in Batuputih Nature Tourism Park, Sulawesi, Indonesia

“…Also, species with dense fur had larger number of ectoparasites compared to others with thin fur. The abundance, intensity, and prevalence of ectoparasites in bats are influenced by a range of variables including, morphology, habitat (Bush et al 2013), gender, nesting, grooming (Ramanantsalama et al 2018) social behavior (Czenze and Broders 2011;Hiller et al 2020), diet (Luguterah and Lawer 2015) and body size (Rajemison et al 2017). This also was observed in the results.…”

“…In the last decade, a number of studies have been conducted on bat ectoparasites in several countries namely Brazil (Almeida et al 2011), Canada (Czenze and Broders 2011), Australia (Holtz et al 2018, Philippines (Pader et al 2018), Singapore (Lee et al 2018;Lim et al 2020), and South East Asia region (Gay et al 2014). According to Luguterah and Lawer (2015), frugivorous bats were more infested by ectoparasites than insectivorous bats. Some fruit-eating bats only eat part of the fruit (Dumont and O'neal 2004) while the remaining portion on the tree or which falls to the ground is then consumed by other wild animals or livestock on agricultural land.…”

Ecdysteroids as natural doping substances in the blood of insectivorous bats

“…Experimentally, these hormones have antifeedant effect and induce early salivary gland degeneration in ticks 9 and were shown to naturally affect ticks taking a blood meal from birds with ecdysteroids in their blood 3 . In support of the possibility that a similar phenomenon might exist among insectivorous bats, these were shown to have significantly lower ectoparasite loads than sympatric fruit-eating bats 10 .…”