Differences in host species relationships and biogeographic influences produce contrasting patterns of prevalence, community composition and genetic structure in two genera of avian malaria parasites in southern Melanesia

Olsson-Pons, Sophie; Clark, Nicholas J.; Ishtiaq, Farah; Clegg, Sonya M.

doi:10.1111/1365-2656.12354

Cited by 54 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…). In a similar analysis of haemosporidian distributions in the Vanuatu Islands of the southwest Pacific Ocean, assemblages of avian Plasmodium lineages exhibited statistically significant distance effects but Haemoproteus lineages did not (Olsson‐Pons et al ., ), suggesting that the geographical structuring of haemosporidian assemblages on islands might differ between archipelagos.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Haemosporidian parasites and avian host population abundance in the Lesser Antilles

Ricklefs

Soares

Ellis

et al. 2016

Journal of Biogeography

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Aim To determine statistical relationships between the prevalence of haemosporidian (malaria) parasites and the abundance of avian host populations across islands in the Lesser Antilles.Location Thirteen islands in the Lesser Antilles, from Grenada in the south to St Kitts in the north.Methods Birds were captured by mist net and small blood samples were taken for polymerase chain reaction and DNA sequencing analysis of haemosporidian parasite infections. Similarities between islands with respect to geographical distance, avian host assemblages and haemosporidian parasite assemblages were compared by partial Mantel tests. Relative abundances of avian host populations across islands were compared to the relative abundances of common haemosporidian lineages by stepwise regression.Results Populations of parasite lineages were more heterogeneously distributed than were host populations across the islands; parasite lineages frequently shift between hosts on different islands and exhibit range disjunctions. Relative population sizes of two widespread and common species of bird in the Lesser Antilles, the bananaquit Coereba flaveola and the black-faced grassquit Tiaris bicolor, were negatively related to the relative abundances of two parasite lineages, OZ01 (Plasmodium sp.) and OZ12 (Haemoproteus sp.), although the latter parasite was not recovered from either host. Positive associations between populations of Elaenia martinica and the relative abundance of three parasite lineages in populations of Vireo altiloquus additionally suggest the possibility of apparent competition between avian species mediated through haemosporidian parasites. Main conclusionsThe results of these analyses are consistent with a strong influence of some avian haemosporidian parasites on populations of their hosts, including indirect interactions through apparent competition. In addition, the heterogeneity of host-parasite associations between islands suggests an evolutionarily dynamic system that is consistent with phases of host expansion and contraction, commonly known as the taxon cycle.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Haemosporidian parasites and avian host population abundance in the Lesser Antilles

Ricklefs

Soares

Ellis

et al. 2016

Journal of Biogeography

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“…Avian malaria infection data were gathered from 1755 birds (belonging to 41 species including 39 native and two introduced species) sampled on 17 islands in southern Melanesia (Olsson‐Pons et al . ; Clark et al . ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating phylogenetic and ecological distances reveals new insights into parasite host specificity

Clark

Clegg

2017

Molecular Ecology

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The range of hosts a pathogen infects (host specificity) is a key element of disease risk that may be influenced by both shared phylogenetic history and shared ecological attributes of prospective hosts. Phylospecificity indices quantify host specificity in terms of host relatedness, but can fail to capture ecological attributes that increase susceptibility. For instance, similarity in habitat niche may expose phylogenetically unrelated host species to similar pathogen assemblages. Using a recently proposed method that integrates multiple distances, we assess the relative contributions of host phylogenetic and functional distances to pathogen host specificity (functional-phylogenetic host specificity). We apply this index to a data set of avian malaria parasite (Plasmodium and Haemoproteus spp.) infections from Melanesian birds to show that multihost parasites generally use hosts that are closely related, not hosts with similar habitat niches. We also show that host community phylogenetic ß-diversity (Pßd) predicts parasite Pßd and that individual host species carry phylogenetically clustered Haemoproteus parasite assemblages. Our findings were robust to phylogenetic uncertainty, and suggest that phylogenetic ancestry of both hosts and parasites plays important roles in driving avian malaria host specificity and community assembly. However, restricting host specificity analyses to either recent or historical timescales identified notable exceptions, including a 'habitat specialist' parasite that infects a diversity of unrelated host species with similar habitat niches. This work highlights that integrating ecological and phylogenetic distances provides a powerful approach to better understand drivers of pathogen host specificity and community assembly.

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“…We combined data with published malaria data from 174 New Caledonian Zosterops individuals (Olsson‐Pons et al . ) for a total of 449 birds (Table a). The data set included 82 haematozoan co‐infections, 16 from published data and 66 from the 2014 data.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…; Olsson‐Pons et al . ), indicating that local Zosterops abundances could influence transmission (Moens et al . ; Ricklefs et al .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Co‐infections and environmental conditions drive the distributions of blood parasites in wild birds

Clark

Wells

Dimitrov

et al. 2016

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Summary 1.Experimental work increasingly suggests that non-random pathogen associations can affect the spread or severity of disease. Yet due to difficulties distinguishing and interpreting co-infections, evidence for the presence and directionality of pathogen co-occurrences in wildlife is rudimentary. 2. We provide empirical evidence for pathogen co-occurrences by analysing infection matrices for avian malaria (Haemoproteus and Plasmodium spp.) and parasitic filarial nematodes (microfilariae) in wild birds (New Caledonian Zosterops spp.). 3. Using visual and genus-specific molecular parasite screening, we identified high levels of co-infections that would have been missed using PCR alone. Avian malaria lineages were assigned to species level using morphological descriptions. We estimated parasite co-occurrence probabilities, while accounting for environmental predictors, in a hierarchical multivariate logistic regression. 4. Co-infections occurred in 36% of infected birds. We identified both positively and negatively correlated parasite co-occurrence probabilities when accounting for host, habitat and island effects. Two of three pairwise avian malaria co-occurrences were strongly negative, despite each malaria parasite occurring across all islands and habitats. Birds with microfilariae had elevated heterophil to lymphocyte ratios and were all co-infected with avian malaria, consistent with evidence that host immune modulation by parasitic nematodes facilitates malaria co-infections. Importantly, co-occurrence patterns with microfilariae varied in direction among avian malaria species; two malaria parasites correlated positively but a third correlated negatively with microfilariae. 5. We show that wildlife co-infections are frequent, possibly affecting infection rates through competition or facilitation. We argue that combining multiple diagnostic screening methods with multivariate logistic regression offers a platform to disentangle impacts of environmental factors and parasite co-occurrences on wildlife disease.

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Differences in host species relationships and biogeographic influences produce contrasting patterns of prevalence, community composition and genetic structure in two genera of avian malaria parasites in southern Melanesia

Cited by 54 publications

References 87 publications

Haemosporidian parasites and avian host population abundance in the Lesser Antilles

Haemosporidian parasites and avian host population abundance in the Lesser Antilles

Integrating phylogenetic and ecological distances reveals new insights into parasite host specificity

Co‐infections and environmental conditions drive the distributions of blood parasites in wild birds

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