Intensity of haemosporidian infection of parids positively correlates with proximity to water bodies, but negatively with host survival

Krama, Tatjana; Krams, Ronalds; Cīrule, Dina; Moore, Fhionna R.; Rantala, Markus J.; Krams, Indriķis

doi:10.1007/s10336-015-1206-5

Cited by 38 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 82 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A number of studies have highlighted the importance of factors such as vegetation cover (Lillesand, Kiefer, & Chipman, 1994;Reisen, Meyer, Tempelis, & Spoehel, 1990;Roiz, Ruiz, Soriguer, & Figuerola, 2015) and water sources (Ferraguti et al, 2016;Ishtiaq et al, 2008;Krams et al, 2010;Njabo et al, 2009) on both vector and host communities. Moreover, water availability was shown to be one of the most important predictors of avian malaria incidence in wild birds (Krama et al, 2015;Wood et al, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological determinants of avian malaria infections: An integrative analysis at landscape, mosquito and vertebrate community levels

Ferraguti

Puente

Bensch

et al. 2018

Journal of Animal Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Vector and host communities, as well as habitat characteristics, may have important but different impacts on the prevalence, richness and evenness of vector-borne parasites. We investigated the relative importance of (1) the mosquito community composition, (2) the vertebrate community composition and (3) landscape characteristics on the prevalence, richness and evenness of avian Plasmodium. We hypothesized that parasite prevalence will be more affected by vector-related parameters, while host parameters should be also important to explain Plasmodium richness and evenness. We sampled 2,588 wild house sparrows (Passer domesticus) and 340,829 mosquitoes, and we performed vertebrate censuses at 45 localities in the Southwest of Spain. These localities included urban, rural and natural landscapes that were characterized by several habitat variables. Twelve Plasmodium lineages were identified in house sparrows corresponding to three major clades. Variation partitioning showed that landscape characteristics explained the highest fraction of variation in all response variables (21.0%-44.8%). Plasmodium prevalence was in addition explained by vector-related variables (5.4%) and its interaction with landscape (10.2%). Parasite richness and evenness were mostly explained by vertebrate community-related variables. The structuring role of landscape characteristics in vector and host communities was a key factor in determining parasite prevalence, richness and evenness, although the role of each factor differed according to the parasite parameters studied. These results show that the biotic and abiotic contexts are important to explain the transmission dynamics of mosquito-borne pathogens in the wild.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological determinants of avian malaria infections: An integrative analysis at landscape, mosquito and vertebrate community levels

Ferraguti

Puente

Bensch

et al. 2018

Journal of Animal Ecology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Environmental factors are known to play a fundamental role in bird-haemosporidian interactions (Loiseau et al, 2010;Sehgal, 2015). In particular, water availability is likely a key determinant of infection patterns in haemosporidians because it is critical for the development of vector larvae (Krama et al, 2015;Loaiza & Miller, 2013;Okanga, Cumming, & Hockey, 2013;Padilla, Illera, Gonzalez-Quevedo, Villalba, & Richardson, 2017). Accordingly, the geographic distribution, transmission, and prevalence of haemosporidians are often predicted by variation in water availability over time (Cornuault et al, 2013; Hernández-Lara, González-García, & Santiago-Alarcon, 2017) and space (Coon & Martin, 2013;Gonzalez-Quevedo, Davies, & Richardson, 2014;Svensson & Ricklefs, 2009;Wood et al, 2007).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Host species, and not environment, predicts variation in blood parasite prevalence, distribution, and diversity along a humidity gradient in northern South America

Pulgarín‐R

Gómez

Robinson

et al. 2018

Ecology and Evolution

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Environmental factors strongly influence the ecology and evolution of vector‐borne infectious diseases. However, our understanding of the influence of climatic variation on host–parasite interactions in tropical systems is rudimentary. We studied five species of birds and their haemosporidian parasites (Plasmodium and Haemoproteus) at 16 sampling sites to understand how environmental heterogeneity influences patterns of parasite prevalence, distribution, and diversity across a marked gradient in water availability in northern South America. We used molecular methods to screen for parasite infections and to identify parasite lineages. To characterize spatial heterogeneity in water availability, we used weather‐station and remotely sensed climate data. We estimated parasite prevalence while accounting for spatial autocorrelation, and used a model selection approach to determine the effect of variables related to water availability and host species on prevalence. The prevalence, distribution, and lineage diversity of haemosporidian parasites varied among localities and host species, but we found no support for the hypothesis that the prevalence and diversity of parasites increase with increasing water availability. Host species and host × climate interactions had stronger effects on infection prevalence, and parasite lineages were strongly associated with particular host species. Because climatic variables had little effect on the overall prevalence and lineage diversity of haemosporidian parasites across study sites, our results suggest that independent host–parasite dynamics may influence patterns in parasitism in environmentally heterogeneous landscapes.

show abstract

“…The prevalence of infection may be influenced by ecological attributes of a host species, and biologists have used these relationships to test predictions that relate pathogen pressure to host evolutionary ecology. For instance, infectious disease prevalence of different host species has been linked to development rates (Ricklefs, 1992;Tella et al 1999), behaviour and sociality (Nunn et al 2000;Nunn and Heymann, 2005;Fecchio et al 2011Fecchio et al , 2013Krebs et al 2014;Lutz et al 2015), colouration and ornamentation (Hamilton and Zuk, 1982;Scheuerlein and Ricklefs, 2004) and habitat use (Mendes et al 2005;Krama et al 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Plasmodium prevalence across avian host species is positively associated with exposure to mosquito vectors

et al. 2015

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The prevalence of vector-borne parasites varies greatly across host species, and this heterogeneity has been used to relate infectious disease susceptibility to host species traits. However, a few empirical studies have directly associated vector-borne parasite prevalence with exposure to vectors across hosts. Here, we use DNA sequencing of blood meals to estimate utilization of different avian host species by Culex mosquitoes, and relate utilization by these malaria vectors to avian Plasmodium prevalence. We found that avian host species that are highly utilized as hosts by avian malaria vectors are significantly more likely to have Plasmodium infections. However, the effect was not consistent among individual Plasmodium taxa. Exposure to vector bites may therefore influence the relative number of all avian Plasmodium infections among host species, while other processes, such as parasite competition and host-parasite coevolution, delimit the host distributions of individual Plasmodium species. We demonstrate that links between avian malaria susceptibility and host traits can be conditioned by patterns of exposure to vectors. Linking vector utilization rates to host traits may be a key area of future research to understand mechanisms that produce variation in the prevalence of vector-borne pathogens among host species.

show abstract

Intensity of haemosporidian infection of parids positively correlates with proximity to water bodies, but negatively with host survival

Cited by 38 publications

References 82 publications

Ecological determinants of avian malaria infections: An integrative analysis at landscape, mosquito and vertebrate community levels

Ecological determinants of avian malaria infections: An integrative analysis at landscape, mosquito and vertebrate community levels

Host species, and not environment, predicts variation in blood parasite prevalence, distribution, and diversity along a humidity gradient in northern South America

Plasmodium prevalence across avian host species is positively associated with exposure to mosquito vectors

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About