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168 results for “parasite community”
Fig. 1 in Parasite diversity and community structure of translocated Clarias gariepinus (Burchell) in South Africa: Testing co-introduction, parasite spillback and enemy release hypotheses
Fig. 1. Map indicating the localities where Clarias gariepinus (Burchell) were collected during the present study. The orange overlay indicates the translocated distribution of C. gariepinus in South Africa. Dark grey shading represents provinces where freshwater fish parasitological research has been conducted more frequently. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
Data from: Factors at multiple scales drive parasite community structure
<p>1. Understanding how ecological communities are assembled remains a key goal of ecosystem ecology. Because communities are hierarchical, factors acting at multiple scales can contribute to patterns of community structure. Parasites provide a natural system to explore this idea, as they exist as discrete communities within host individuals, which are themselves part of a community and metacommunity.</p> <p>2. We aimed to understand the relative contribution of multi-scale drivers in parasite community assembly and assess how patterns at one level may mask those occurring at another. Specifically, we wanted to disentangle patterns caused by passive sampling from those determined by ecological drivers, and how these vary with scale.</p> <p>3. We applied a Markov Random Fields model and assessed measures of β-diversity and nestedness for 420 replicate parasite infracommunities (parasite assemblages in host individuals) across two freshwater mussel host species, three sites and two time periods, comparing our results to simulations from four different ecologically relevant null models.</p> <p>4. We showed that β-diversity between sites (explaining 25% of variation in parasite distribution) and host species (41%) is greater than expected, and β-diversity between individual hosts is smaller than expected, even after accounting for parasite prevalence and characteristics of host individuals. Further, parasite communities were significantly less nested than expected once parasite prevalence and host characteristics were both accounted for, but more nested than expected otherwise, suggesting a degree of modularity at the within-host level that is masked if underlying host and parasite characteristics are not taken into account. The Markov Random Fields model provided evidence for possible competitive within-host parasite interactions, providing a mechanism for the observed infracommunity modularity.</p> <p>5. An integrative approach that examines factors at multiple scales is necessary to understand the composition of ecological communities. Further, patterns at one level can alter the interpretation of ecologically important drivers at another if variation at higher scales is not accounted for. </p>
Similar parasite communities but dissimilar infection patterns in two closely related chickadee species
<p>Haemosporidian parasite communities are broadly similar in Boulder County, CO between two common songbirds –– the Black-capped Chickadee (<em>Poecile</em> <em>atricapillus</em>) and Mountain Chickadee (<em>Poecile</em> <em>gambeli</em>). However, Mountain Chickadees appear more likely to be infected with <em>Plasmodium</em> and potentially experience higher infection burdens with <em>Leucocytozoon</em> in contrast to Black-capped Chickadees. We found that elevation change (and associated ecology) drives the distributions of these parasite genera. For Boulder County chickadees, environmental factors play a more important role in structuring haemosporidian communities than host evolutionary differences. However, evolutionary differences are likely key to shaping the probability of infection, infection burden, and whether an infection remains detectable over time. We found that for recaptured birds, their infection status (i.e., presence or absence of detectable parasite infection) tends to remain consistent across capture periods. We sampled 234 chickadees between 2017–2021 across a ~1500-meter elevation gradient from low elevation (i.e., the city of Boulder) to comparatively high elevation (i.e., the CU Boulder Mountain Research Station). It is unknown whether long-term haemosporidian abundance trends have changed over time in our sampling region. However, we ask whether potentially disparate patterns of <em>Plasmodium</em> susceptibility and <em>Leucocytozoon</em> infection burden could be playing a role in the negative population trends of Mountain Chickadees.</p>
Agricultural land use and ensuing eutrophication both shape parasitic trematode communities in rural African lakes
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Network specificity decreases community stability and competition among avian haemosporidian parasites and their hosts
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Data from: Factors at multiple scales drive parasite community structure
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Similar parasite communities but dissimilar infection patterns in two closely related chickadee species
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Data from: Between predators and parasitoids: complex interactions among shelter traits, predation, and parasitism in a shelter-building caterpillar community
<ol> <li>Shelter building is widespread in the animal world and such shelters often influence the success of their builders. Shelters built by caterpillars influence the likelihood of attacks by natural enemies, but how particular shelter traits influence caterpillar survival is not known. Furthermore, the differential effects of certain shelter traits on some natural enemies, such as predators, may lead to "enemy-free space" for other natural enemies (parasitoids). The parasitoid enemy-free space hypothesis has not been directly tested for shelter-building caterpillars.</li> <li>To understand how shelter traits influence caterpillar survival, shelter traits, predation, and parasitism were measured simultaneously for 24 caterpillar morphospecies (1465 caterpillars) in a tropical dry forest and analyzed in a phylogenetic context.</li> <li>Shelter type, shelter openness, and whether shelters accumulated frass had different amounts of phylogenetic signal, with frass accumulation displaying the most and shelter openness the least.</li> <li>All three traits affected the frequency with which caterpillar species experienced predation. Predation was elevated in two shelter types (leaf folds and leaf rolls) compared to cut-and-fold shelters. Combinations of shelter openness and frass accumulation also affected predation, with closed frass-free shelters having the lowest predation and closed frass-filled shelters having the highest.</li> <li>Parasitism was not affected by shelter traits but was strongly correlated with evolutionary history and negatively correlated with predation.</li> <li>These results confirm a trade-off between predation and parasitism and demonstrate that predation can be more frequent than parasitism. Different shelter types result in different amounts of predation. These defensive shelter traits and their effectiveness also vary phylogenetically. Together, our results suggest that predation and parasitism determine the success of shelter-building caterpillars, and that success is a function of the specific shelter they construct. More generally, our results demonstrate the importance of considering the effects of defensive traits on both predators and parasitoids when investigating interactions between herbivores and natural enemies.</li> </ol>
Data from: Fluid preservation causes minimal reduction of parasite detectability in fish specimens: a new approach for reconstructing parasite communities of the past?
<ol> <li>Long-term datasets are needed to evaluate temporal patterns in wildlife disease burdens, but historical data on parasite abundance are extremely rare. For more than a century, natural history collections have been accumulating fluid-preserved specimens, which should contain the parasites infecting the host at the time of its preservation. However, before this unique data source can be exploited, we must identify the artefacts that are introduced by the preservation process. Here, we experimentally address whether the preservation process alters the degree to which metazoan parasites are detectable in fluid-preserved fish specimens when using visual parasite detection techniques.</li> <li>We randomly assigned fish of three species (<i>Gadus chalcogrammus, Thaleichthys pacificus, Parophrys vetulus</i>) to two treatments. In the first treatment, fish were preserved according to the standard procedures used in ichthyological collections. Immediately after the fluid-preservation process was complete, we performed parasitological dissection on those specimens. The second treatment was a control, in which fish were dissected without being subjected to the fluid-preservation process. We compared parasite abundance between the two treatments.</li> <li>Across 298 fish individuals and 59 host–parasite pairs, we found few differences between treatments, with 24 of 27 host–parasite pairs equally abundant between the two treatments. Of these, one pair was significantly more abundant in the preservation treatment than in the control group, and two pairs were significantly less abundant in the preservation treatment than in the control group.</li> <li>Our data suggest that the fluid-preservation process does not have a substantial effect on the detectability of metazoan parasites. This study addresses only the effects of the fixation and preservation process; long-term experiments are needed to address whether parasite detectability remains unchanged in the months, years, and decades of storage following preservation. If so, ecologists will be able to reconstruct novel, long-term datasets on parasite diversity and abundance over the past century or more using fluid-preserved specimens from natural history collections.</li> </ol>
Experimental parasite community perturbation reveals associations between Sin Nombre virus and gastrointestinal nematodes in a rodent reservoir host
<p>Individuals are often co-infected with several parasite species, yet measuring within-host interactions remains difficult in the wild. Consequently, the impact of such interactions on host fitness and epidemiology are often unknown. We used anthelmintic drugs to experimentally reduce nematode infection and measured the effects on both nematodes and the important zoonosis Sin Nombre virus (SNV) in its primary reservoir (<i>Peromyscus spp.</i>). Treatment significantly reduced nematode infection, but increased SNV seroprevalence. Furthermore, mice that were co-infected with both nematodes and SNV were in better condition and survived up to four times longer than uninfected or singly-infected mice. These results highlight the importance of investigating multiple parasites for understanding interindividual variation and epidemiological dynamics in reservoir populations with zoonotic transmission potential.</p>
Beyond single host, single parasite interactions: quantifying competence for complete multi-host, multi-parasite communities
<p>Understanding parasite transmission in communities requires knowledge of each species' capacity to support transmission. This property, "competence", is a critical currency for modeling transmission under community change and for testing diversity-disease theory. Despite the central role of competence in disease ecology, we lack a clear understanding of the factors that generate competence and drive its variation.</p> <p>We developed novel conceptual and quantitative approaches to systematically quantify competence for a multi-host, multi-parasite community. We applied our framework to an extensive dataset: five amphibian host species exposed to four parasitic trematode species across five ecologically realistic exposure doses. Together, this experimental design captured twenty host-parasite interactions while integrating important information on variation in parasite exposure. Using experimental infection assays, we measured multiple components of the infection process and combined them to produce competence estimates for each interaction.</p> <p>With directly estimated competence values, we asked which components of the infection process best explained variation in competence: barrier resistance (the initial fraction of administered parasites blocked from infecting a host), internal clearance (the fraction of established parasites lost over time) or pre-transmission mortality (the probability of host death prior to transmission). We found that variation in competence among the twenty interactions was best explained by differences in barrier resistance and pre-transmission mortality, underscoring the importance of host resistance and parasite pathogenicity in shaping competence.</p> <p>We also produced dose-integrated estimates of competence that incorporated natural variation in exposure to address questions on the basis and extent of variation in competence. We found strong signals that host species identity shaped competence variation (as opposed to parasite species identity). While variation in infection outcomes across hosts, parasites, individuals, and doses was considerable, individual heterogeneity was limited compared to among-species differences. This finding highlights the robustness of our competence estimates and suggests that species-level values may be strong predictors for community-level transmission in natural systems.</p> <p>Competence emerges from distinct underlying processes and can have strong species-level characteristics; thus, this property has great potential for linking mechanisms of infection to epidemiological patterns.</p>
Cross-continental comparison of parasite communities in a wide-ranging carnivore suggests associations with prey diversity and host density
<p><span>Parasites are integral to ecosystem functioning yet often overlooked. Improved understanding of host-parasite associations is important, particularly for wide-ranging species for which host range shifts and climate change could alter host-parasite interactions and their effects on ecosystem function. </span></p> <p><span>Among the most widely distributed mammals with diverse diets, grey wolves (<i>Canis lupus</i>) host parasites that are transmitted among canids and via prey species. Grey wolf-parasite associations may therefore influence the population dynamics and ecological functions of both wolves and their prey. Our goal was to identify large-scale processes that shape host-parasite interactions across populations, with the grey wolf as a model organism. </span></p> <p><span>By compiling data from various studies, we examined the faecal prevalence of gastrointestinal parasites in six wolf populations from two continents in relation to wolf density, diet diversity, and other ecological conditions.</span></p> <p><span>As expected, we found that the faecal prevalence of parasites transmitted directly to wolves via contact with other canids or their excreta was positively associated with wolf density. Contrary to our expectations, the faecal prevalence of parasites transmitted via prey was negatively associated with prey diversity. We also found that parasite communities reflected landscape characteristics and specific prey items available to wolves. </span></p> <p><span>Several parasite taxa identified in this study, including hookworms and coccidian protozoans, can cause morbidity and mortality in canids, especially in pups, or in combination with other stressors. The density-prevalence relationship for parasites with simple lifecycles may reflect a regulatory role of gastrointestinal parasites on wolf populations. Our result that faecal prevalence of parasites was lower in wolves with more diverse diets could provide insight into the mechanisms by which biodiversity may regulate disease. A diverse suite of predator-prey interactions could regulate the effects of parasitism on prey populations and mitigate the transmission of infectious agents, including zoonoses, spread via trophic interactions. </span></p>
Temporal stability of polymorphic Arctic charr parasite communities reflect sustained divergent trophic niches
<p>Polymorphic Arctic charr Salvelinus alpinus populations frequently display distinct differences in habitat use, diet and parasite communities. Changes to the relative species densities and composition of the wider fish community have the potential to alter the habitat-niche of sympatric Arctic charr populations. This study evaluated the temporal stability of the parasite community, diet and stable isotopes (δ13C, δ15N) of three sympatric Arctic charr morphs (piscivore, benthivore and planktivore) from Loch Rannoch, Scotland, in relation to changes to the fish community. All Arctic charr morphs displayed distinct differences parasite communities, diet and stable isotope signatures over time, despite the establishment of four new trophically transmitted parasite taxa, and increased fish and zooplankton consumption by the piscivorous and planktivore morphs respectively. Native parasite prevalence also increased in all Arctic charr morphs. Overall, Loch Rannoch polymorphic Arctic charr morph populations have maintained their distinct trophic niches and parasite communities through time despite changes in the fish community. This result indicates that restocking of a native fish species has the potential to induce shifts in the parasite community and diet of Arctic charr morphs.</p>
Fig. 1 in "Till death do us apart": The common destiny of brown hare and its parasite community
Fig. 1. Micipsella numidica (arrow) in the thoracic cavity of one hare.
Linking community assembly and structure across scales in a wild mouse parasite community
<p>Understanding what processes drive community structure is fundamental to ecology. Many wild animals are simultaneously infected by multiple parasite species, so host parasite communities can be valuable tools for investigating connections between community structures at multiple scales, as each host can be considered a replicate parasite community. Like free-living communities, within-host parasite communities are hierarchical; ecological interactions between hosts and parasites can occur at multiple scales (e.g. host community, host population, parasite community within the host), therefore both extrinsic and intrinsic processes can determine parasite community structure. We combine analyses of community structure and assembly at both the host population and individual scales using extensive datasets on wild wood mice (<i>Apodemus sylvaticus</i>) and their parasite community. An analysis of parasite community nestedness at the host population scale provided predictions about the order of infection at the individual scale, which were then tested using parasite community assembly data from individuals hosts from the same populations. Nestedness analyses revealed parasite communities were significantly more structured than random. However, observed nestedness did not differ from null models in which parasite species abundance was kept constant. We did not find consistency between observed community structure at the host population scale and within-host order of infection. Multistate-Markov models of parasite community assembly showed that a host's likelihood of infection with one parasite was not impacted by previous parasite infection, suggesting there is not a deterministic order of infection among the species we investigated in wild wood mice. Our results demonstrate that patterns at one scale (i.e. host population) do not reliably predict processes at another scale (i.e. individual host), and that neutral or stochastic processes may be driving the patterns of nestedness observed in these communities. We suggest that experimental approaches that manipulate parasite communities are needed to better link processes at multiple ecological scales.</p>
Revealing the drivers of parasite community assembly: using avian haemosporidians to model global dynamics of parasite species turnover
<p>Why do some regions share more or fewer species than others? Community assembly relies on the ability of individuals to disperse, colonize, and thrive in new regions. Therefore, many distinct factors, such as geographic distance and environmental features, can determine the odds of a species colonizing a new environment. For parasites, host community composition (i.e., resources) also plays a key role in their ability to colonize a new environment as they rely on their hosts to complete their life cycle. Thus, variation in host community composition and environmental conditions should determine parasite turnover among regions. Here, we explored the global drivers of parasite turnover using avian malaria and malaria-like (haemosporidian) parasites. We compiled global databases on avian haemosporidian lineages distributions, environmental conditions, avian species distributions and functional traits and ran generalized dissimilarity models to uncover the main drivers of parasite turnover. We demonstrated that haemosporidian parasite turnover is mainly driven by geographic distance followed by host functional traits, environmental conditions, and host distributions. The main host functional traits associated with high parasite turnover were the predominance of resident (i.e., non-migratory) species and strong territoriality while the most important climatic drivers of haemosporidian turnover were mean temperature and temperature seasonality. Overall, we establish the importance of geographic distance as a key predictor of ecological dissimilarity and show that host resources influence parasite turnover more strongly than environmental conditions. We also evidenced that parasite turnover is most pronounced among tropical and less interconnected regions (i.e., regions with mostly territorial and non-migratory hosts). Our findings provide a robust foundation for the prediction of avian pathogen spread and the emergence of infectious diseases.</p>
Short-term fitness consequences of parasitism depend on host genotype and within-host parasite community
<p>Multi-parasite communities inhabiting individual hosts are common and often consist of parasites from multiple taxa. The effects of parasite community composition and complexity on host fitness are critical for understanding how host-parasite coevolution is affected by parasite diversity. To test how naturally-occurring parasites affect host fitness of multiple host genotypes, we performed a common-garden experiment where we inoculated four genotypes of host plant <em>Plantago lanceolata</em> with six microbial parasite treatments: three single parasite treatments, a fungal mixture, a viral mixture, and a cross-kingdom treatment. Seed production was affected by both host genotype and parasite treatment, and their interaction jointly determined growth of the hosts. Fungal parasites had more consistent negative effects than viruses in both single mixed parasite treatments. These results demonstrate that parasite communities have the potential to affect the evolution and ecology of host populations through their effects on host growth and reproduction. Moreover, the results highlight the importance of accounting for the diversity of parasites as well as host genotypes when aiming to predict the consequences of parasites for epidemics as the effects of multi-parasitism are not necessarily additive of single parasite effects, nor uniform across all host genotypes.</p>
Beyond single host, single parasite interactions: quantifying competence for complete multi-host, multi-parasite communities
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Data from: Parasite transmission in a natural multihost-multiparasite community
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Cross-continental comparison of parasite communities in a wide-ranging carnivore suggests associations with prey diversity and host density
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Allen Brain Atlas
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Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
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