Bat flies from the deciduous Atlantic Forest in southern Brazil: Host-parasite relationships and parasitism rates

Abstract

This study describes the assemblage of ectoparasitic bat flies, their hosts, and parasitism rates in an Atlantic Forest area in southern Brazil. Bats were captured monthly for one year at two sites. We captured 95 bats belonging to nine species, but only Artibeus lituratus, Artibeus fimbriatus, Sturnira lilium (Phyllostomidae) and Myotis nigricans (Vespertilionidae) were found to be parasitized. The bat flies collected were: Streblidae -Paratrichobius longicrus (on A. lituratus) and Megistopoda aranea (on A. lituratus and A. fimbriatus), Megistopoda proxima (on S. lilium); Nycteribiidae -Basilia andersoni (on M. nigricans). Artibeus fimbriatus and S. lilium showed the highest values of parasite prevalence (60 and 35.7%, respectively) and mean intensities (1.9 and 2.1, respectively). Only two parasitized individuals of A. lituratus were found, resulting in the lowest local rate of parasite prevalence (2.6%) and mean intensity (1.0). This low rate may result from the use of ephemeral roosts in the area. The high values of frequency and number of flies per host on A. fimbriatus and S. lilium in relation to other studies could be explained by the low richness of bat flies here, and in turn, by low competition among fly species per host.

Parasitism of ectoparasitic flies on bats in the northern Brazilian cerrado

“…This abundance of both species and ectoparasites per host is opposed to the hypothesis that a higher mean intensity of ectoparasites would be a result of less competition for hosts by flies in areas with lower richness of ectoparasite species (Camilotti et al 2010). Probably, biogeographical and historical factors of host populations in each area, besides the number of species and individuals sampled, should also have their contribution in species number and intensity of infestation of ectoparasites.…”

“…Among factors that may attribute to the highest number of bat fly species found in the cerrado, we propose: 1) the study area's location near the Amazon eastern transition zone (Ab 'Saber 1977), which includes the distributional limit of various host species (Simmons 2005) that can support different component communities; 2) factors external to the host that can affect the abundance of ectoparasites and their hosts, such as the type of climate, vegetation (Prevedello et al 2005) or host shelter (Wenzel et al 1966, Patterson et al 2007; 3) the highest number of individuals and host species than those reported in other studies with less rich and abundant fauna, such as those conducted in deciduous forest (Camilotti et al 2010) and caatinga (Rios et al 2008), a result that could favor the sample of host species with different component communities as well as the finding of bat fly species that occur in low prevalence in their host species; 4) the major sampling effort that may contribute to the finding of more host species and individuals, which is comparable just to the realized in Atlantic forest by Bertola et al (2005, Unauthenticated Download Date | 5/11/18 9:56 PM 2011) -that had, at most, the half of the sampling effort of this study.…”

“…In the neotropics, these families are distributed across various ecoregions (Prevedello et al 2005), with more records in the Amazon region (Wenzel et al 1966, Wenzel 1976, Guerrero 1997 and in deciduous forests of the south-central portion of the continent (Dick and Gettinger 2005, Bertola et al 2005, Autino et al 2009, Camilotti et al 2010.…”

Prevalence and intensity of Streblidae in bats from a Neotropical savanna region in Brazil

“…Additionally, it is possible to find bat fly species that are of low prevalence on their host species, such as those reported in deciduous forests (Camilotti et al 2010) and the Caatinga (Rios et al 2008), who presented a less rich and abundant fauna. Santos et al (2013) listed were the vegetation structure, the abundance of host shelter and the high number of individuals and host species among the most important factors.…”

Resources partitioning in a fruit bat community of the southern Atlantic Forest, Brazil

“…It is known that bats having high infestation rates by bat flies use long-term roosts, while bats with low infestation use ephemeral ones (Wenzel andTipton 1966, Kunz 1982b). In the same study area, an investigation about the relationships between bats and ectoparasite bat flies revealed high rates of parasitism on A. fimbriatus and low rates of parasitism on A. lituratus (Camilotti et al 2010). Thus, in this area A. fimbriatus may use more durable and resistant roosts, such as caves and tree holes, while A. lituratus may use ephemeral roosts, such as canopy trees.…”