Analysis of COI gene, prevalence, and intensity of the bat fly Cyclopodia greeffi on roosting straw-coloured fruit bat Eidolon helvum in Southwest Nigeria

Ectoparasite and bacterial population genetics and community structure indicate extent of bat movement across an island chain

“…This agrees with results from a captive colony of E. helvum in Ghana, wherein neonate bats were found to be initially uninfected with Bartonella and became infected when bat flies were present (McKee et al, 2021). It is important to note that sampling periods from this study were not all contemporaneous and density of flies in a population can also vary seasonally (Atobatele et al, 2023) Bangladesh found that Bartonella prevalence in bats increased over the nine month study period, which coincided with the rainy season, an influx of juvenile bats into the population, and an increase in the prevalence of bat flies (Fagre et al, 2023). The study by Fagre et al (2023) provides support for the hypothesis that bats become exposed to Bartonella relatively early in life following colonization by bat flies.…”

“…Eidolon helvum and Rousettus aegyptiacus are abundant across their ranges, with some colonies numbering in the thousands to millions of individuals (Kwiecinski and Griffiths, 1999;Peel et al, 2017;Hurme et al, 2022). While our data (Table 3) and other published work (Atobatele et al, 2023) suggest that nycteribiid prevalence on E.…”

“…While both species of fly are wingless and rely on their hosts for long-distance dispersal, bat flies are agile walkers and could be capable of frequent movements between individual hosts within a roost (Dick and Patterson, 2006;Dittmar et al, 2015). Both fly species have been documented across much of their respective hosts' ranges (Theodor, 1957;Billeter et al, 2012;Qiu et al, 2020;Reeves et al, 2020;Atobatele et al, 2023), but no studies have evaluated their potential genetic differentiation by geography. Only a few population genetic https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031182024000660 Published online by Cambridge University Press studies have been performed on nycteribiid bat flies generally (Olival et al, 2013;van Schaik et al, 2015van Schaik et al, , 2018aWitsenburg et al, 2015;Speer et al, 2019;Verrett et al, 2022).…”