Female host sex-biased parasitism with the rodent stomach nematode Mastophorus muris in wild bank voles (Myodes glareolus)

Abstract

Abundance and prevalence of helminth infections often differ between host sexes, and are usually biased in favor of males. Relatively few cases of female-biased parasitism have been reported. We sampled bank voles in three woodland sites in N.E. Poland over 11 years at 3-4-year intervals, and assessed their parasite burdens. Prevalence and abundance of the stomach nematode Mastophorus muris were consistently higher among females. Among adult female bank voles from the two sites that showed the highest prevalence with M. muris, both prevalence and abundance were significantly higher in lactating bank voles, but not pregnant animals, and the effect of lactation was evident in both sites, in all four surveys, and in both age classes. Although the magnitude of the effect of lactation varied between years, it was not confounded by any significant interactions with other factors. We hypothesize that mature and reproductively active female bank voles are subject to higher exposure compared with males of similar age, as a consequence of the increased content of invertebrates in their diet, including the intermediate hosts of M. muris, required to meet the higher increased energy and protein demands of nursing litters throughout the summer months.

Rodents as Hosts of Pathogens and Related Zoonotic Disease Risk

“…Indeed, sexual differences in physiology, behavior, and evolutionary roles, have been shown to impact both the susceptibility and the exposition to different pathogens [74]. For instance, Gryzbek et al [78] evidenced that mature and reproductively active female bank voles are subject to higher exposure to helminths. Furthermore, the interplay between resistance and tolerance, the two main immune strategies implemented by a host when it is challenged by a parasite [79,80], was shown to differ substantially between male and female rodents [81].…”

Analysis of intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing the dynamics of bovine Eimeria spp. from central–eastern Poland

“…The adopted statistical approach has previously been described (Behnke et al, 2008;Grzybek et al, 2015Grzybek et al, , 2014. Briefly, for analysis of For analyses of the quantitative data we used general linear models (GLM) implemented in R version 2.2.1 (R Core Development Team).…”

Equine strongyle communities are constrained by horse sex and species dipersal-fecundity trade-off

“…Host sex is a significant driver of parasite community, males being generally more heavily infected than females (Poulin, 1996). This pattern does not always hold (Grzybek et al, 2015), especially in horses where definitive consensus has not been reached yet (Kornaś et al, 2010; Kornaś et al, 2015; Debeffe et al, 2016). Our results suggested that horse sex did not exerted a conserved influence on worm relative abundance across species, but that mares had more consistent strongyle communities.…”

“…Host sex effect is a major driver of helminth community assemblage, male mammals being generally more frequently and more heavily parasitized (Poulin, 1996; Zuk and McKean, 1996). Although, some discrepancies exist to this general pattern (Grzybek et al, 2015). In horses, no clear consensus has been reached so far.…”