Birds are crucial in maintaining the balance of many ecosystems and provide various ecological services. Understanding their sensitivity to human disturbances should be prioritized in understudy areas for effective conservation practices. Using mist nets, this study characterized mostly understory bird communities (insectivorous, frugivorous, granivorous, and nectarivorous birds) in three habitat types (pristine forest, selectively logged forest, and young oil palm plantation) in the Talangaye rainforest, Southwest Cameroon. A total of 845 birds belonging to 27 families and 85 species were recorded in the three habitats after 294 h of mist netting. Overall, the mist-netted community was largely dominated by insectivores, followed by frugivores, nectarivores, granivores, and carnivores. Although mean species richness, abundance, and Simpson diversity index did not vary significantly among habitat types, mean species abundance and diversity index decreased in selectively logged forest and young oil palm plantation and species richness increased in both habitats. The species richness, abundance, and diversity index for insectivorous and frugivorous birds were lowest in the young oil palm plantations. For granivores, species richness and abundance increased following selective logging and the establishment of oil palm plantation. The highest mean species richness and diversity index in nectarivores were recorded in the young oil palm plantations. The study showed that selective logging and establishment of oil palm plantation had variable effects on the bird communities in the Talangaye rainforest. Also, the frugivorous birds appeared to be more sensitive to both types of disturbances, while the insectivores were more sensitive to habitat loss/conversion.

2Two-color flow cytometry(2cFCM) is the most accessible method for phenotyping parasite 3 invasion. However, current protocols require samples of field isolates at ~1% parasitemia for 4 assay set-up, which are becoming more uncommon in low transmission settings. Current 5 protocols, therefore, have to be adapted for low parasitemia if the method must have 6 continued applicability in this era of elimination. Optimizing the protocol requires 7 addressing; interference from young uninfected RBCs background fluorescence and biased 8 phenotypes due to limited labeled RBCs availability and/or parasite density per assay. Here, 9 we used SYBR Green I and CTFR Proliferation fluorescent dyes to set-up invasion assays 10 with Plasmodium falciparum 3D7, Dd2 and field isolates cultures (diluted at 0.05% to 2.0% 11 parasitemia) against varying unlabeled to labeled RBC ratios (1:1 to 1:4). We showed that a 12 shorter SYBR Green I staining time of 20 minutes, down from 1hour, minimized background 13 fluorescence from uninfected RBCs (mean= 0.03% events) and allowed 2cFCM to accurately 14 quantify reinvasion for an assay at 0.02% parasitemia. An increase in labeled target RBCs to 15 1:3 per assays significantly increased heterologous reinvasion (p<0.001). This resulted in a 16 10% greater invasion inhibition by enzyme treatments (p<0.05). Strain-specific invasion 17 phenotype could be accurately determined for samples with as low as 0.3% parasitemia. 18 Samples above 0.8% parasitemia were less accurate. These findings show that invasion 19 pathway phenotypes can be obtained for field samples with low parasitemia at greater 20 sensitivity and reproducibility by increasing the proportion of labeled RBCs per assay by at 21 least 2-fold what is in current methods. 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Keywords: Malaria, Flow cytometry, Sensitivity, Low parasitemia, RBC Invasion pathway 30 phenotypes. 31 32 BACKGROUND: 33 Invasion of human red blood cells (RBCs; Erythrocytes) by Plasmodium falciparum 34 merozoite is vital for malaria parasite multiplication and transmission between hosts and it is 35 considered a key target for the development of malaria interventions (Burns et al. 2019). 36 Invasion mechanism makes use of multiple and redundant parasite ligand and erythrocyte 37 receptor combinations (Perkins and Holt 1988; Binks and Conway 1999), whose dynamics 38 are affected by host, transmission rates and environmental factors such as interventions. 39 Studies on parasite invasion mechanisms and invasion phenotypes could, therefore, help in 40 monitoring the effects of interventions and in designing alternative intervention strategies 41 against natural parasite populations (Stubbs et al. 2005; Beeson et al. 2019). Such studies 42 have recently been scaled up by the application of sensitive high throughput two-color Flow 43 Cytometry (2cFCM)-based methods (Theron et al. 2010; Bei et al. 2010; Bei and Duraisingh 44 2015). These methods quantify the total number of successfully invaded merozoites 45 (reinvasion), rather than just the total numb...