Nest ecology of blood parasites in the European roller and its ectoparasitic carnid fly

Culicoides paolae and C. circumscriptus as potential vectors of avian haemosporidians in an arid ecosystem

“…Finally, we also detected a new Haemoproteus lineage highly similar (99% similarity) to the one corresponding to the haplotype H1CG.1 (identified as H. coraciae ), which was detected previously in the same roller breeding population by Václav et al [ 39 ]. Microscopic examination of smears suggested that this lineage might correspond to the species Haemoproteus coraciae [ 39 ], a parasite identified in rollers in Bulgaria [ 88 ] and Kazakhstan [ 89 ]. For the case of avian malaria parasites and related haemosporidians, different lineages are described with differences of a single nucleotide base in their sequences [ 62 ].…”

“…Data from two breeding seasons suggest that the two species exhibit different phenologies, C. paolae being more abundant late in the roller breeding season whereas the opposite is true for C. circumscriptus . Furthermore, whereas the ability of some ornithophilic biting midges to feed inside enclosed places (endophagy) has been previously shown [ 39 , 53 , 69 , 76 ], to our knowledge this is the first time that endophagy has been recorded for C. paolae .…”

“…In this area, the prevalence of infection by Haemoproteus spp. varies between avian species, with a total absence of parasites found in adult Trumpeter finches ( Bucanetes githagineus ) while all the adult European rollers ( Coracias garrulus ) sampled showed evidence of infection [ 38 , 39 ]. The haemosporidian species described for rollers in this area ( Haemoproteus coraciae ) was clustered, based on phylogenetic analysis, with other Haemoproteus spp.…”

“…The haemosporidian species described for rollers in this area ( Haemoproteus coraciae ) was clustered, based on phylogenetic analysis, with other Haemoproteus spp. vectored by Culicoides [ 39 ], although the dipteran species involved in its transmission remains unidentified.…”

Telomere length and dynamics of spotless starling nestlings depend on nest-building materials used by parents

“…Moreover, we quantified parasitism by C. hemapterus flies, a 2 mm blood-sucking fly found in nests of an extremely wide diversity of birds (Brake, 2011;Grimaldi, 1997). It feeds exclusively on birds while in the nests, mainly on nestlings (Vaclav et al, 2016), but also on incubating birds (Avilés, Pérez-Contreras, Navarro, & Soler, 2009;Lopez-Rull, Gil, & Gil, 2007).…”