Parasite prevalence corresponds to host life history in a diverse assemblage of afrotropical birds and haemosporidian parasites

Avian host life history traits have been hypothesized to predict rates of infection by haemosporidian parasites. Using molecular techniques, we tested this hypothesis for parasites from three haemosporidian genera (Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, and Leucocytozoon) collected from a diverse sampling of bir...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-04, Vol.10 (4), p.e0121254-e0121254
Main Authors: Lutz, Holly L, Hochachka, Wesley M, Engel, Joshua I, Bell, Jeffrey A, Tkach, Vasyl V, Bates, John M, Hackett, Shannon J, Weckstein, Jason D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aedes aegypti
Animal behavior
Animals
Behavior, Animal
Biodiversity
Bird Diseases - transmission
Birds
Birds - growth & development
Birds - parasitology
Culicidae
Culicoides brevitarsis
Cytochrome
Cytochrome b
Cytochromes
Deoxyribonucleic acid
Diptera
Disease Vectors
DNA
DNA sequencing
Ecosystem
Flocking behavior
Gene sequencing
Haemosporida - classification
Haemosporida - physiology
Host-Parasite Interactions
Infections
Influence
Life Cycle Stages
Life history
Malaria
Museums
National parks
Nucleotide sequence
Parasites
Parasitism
Plasmodium
Prevalence
Prevalence studies (Epidemiology)
Protozoan Infections, Animal - transmission
Vector-borne diseases
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Avian host life history traits have been hypothesized to predict rates of infection by haemosporidian parasites. Using molecular techniques, we tested this hypothesis for parasites from three haemosporidian genera (Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, and Leucocytozoon) collected from a diverse sampling of birds in northern Malawi. We found that host life history traits were significantly associated with parasitism rates by all three parasite genera. Nest type and nest location predicted infection probability for all three parasite genera, whereas flocking behavior is an important predictor of Plasmodium and Haemoproteus infection and habitat is an important predictor of Leucocytozoon infection. Parasite prevalence was 79.1% across all individuals sampled, higher than that reported for comparable studies from any other region of the world. Parasite diversity was also exceptionally high, with 248 parasite cytochrome b lineages identified from 152 host species. A large proportion of Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, and Leucocytozoon parasite DNA sequences identified in this study represent new, previously undocumented lineages (n = 201; 81% of total identified) based on BLAST queries against the avian malaria database, MalAvi.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0121254