Prevalence responses to anthropic factors differ across hosts and parasite species. We here analyzed the spatiotemporal variation of avian haemosporidian prevalence in bird assemblages of the Mooswald forest (i.e., urban greenspace; Freiburg, Germany), in response to local environmental features (e.g., water sources, human presence (visited)/absence (unvisited)) and bird-level traits (e.g., body condition, age, sex) in 2 years. We analyzed a total of 544 samples of seven bird species. Haemosporidian prevalence was significantly different between some focal bird species. There was a negative association between distance to the nearest water source and prevalence in the year 2011, and the opposite pattern for the year 2013. However, when analyzed for the six focal species separately, such a relationship could change from a negative to a positive one, or there could be no relationship at all. For Leucocytozoon there was higher prevalence in the section of the forest visited by humans. We did not find spatial autocorrelation for prevalence across the study site, but there were statistically significant local spatial clusters in the visited section. Although there were similar responses of prevalence to some factors, infection patterns were generally bird species specific. Thus, prevalence is a labile epidemiological parameter, varying spatiotemporally in an idiosyncratic way.
International Journal for Parasitology 49 (2019) 235–246. You can download the paper from the following link during the next 50 days: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1YkCD4j~kk0TK
No comments:
Post a Comment