The Influence of Host Body Size and Food Guild on Prevalence and Mean Intensity of Chewing Lice (Phthiraptera) on Birds in Southern China

Abstract

BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.

Chewing lice from high‐altitude and migrating birds in Yunnan, China, with descriptions of two new species of Guimaraesiella

“…Notably, almost no lice were collected from migrating passerines at Jinshanyakou (one bird; 0.7% infested), whereas 59 of 162 (36%) of the resident passerine birds caught at Ailaoshan were infested with chewing lice (Table 1). This is in contrast with the results reported by Chu et al (2019), who found that there were no significant differences in prevalence between resident and migrant birds in China. Several factors may explain this discrepancy.…”

“…between regions with different external environments). This hypothesis may explain the differences between the results of the present and those reported by Chu et al (2019) and would be in line with much lower infestation rates in migratory birds caught in Sweden and Japan (D. R. Gustafsson, unpublished data). However, our present data set from Yunnan is not sufficient to test this hypothesis; future collections in China will focus on the difference between SCM and NCM birds, specifically.…”

“…Moreover, Chu et al (2019) did not differentiate between birds that breed in South China and migrate to, for example, Southeast Asia (South China Migrants, SCM), and birds that breed in, for example, North China and migrate to South China (North China Migrants, NCM). Migration for the SCM birds would be within the tropical/subtropical region and, even during migration, these birds would not experience any significant differences in external environment; the environment would in this sense not be very different from that of resident birds in South China.…”

“…Several factors may explain this discrepancy. For example, Chu et al (2019) included both passerine and non-passerine birds in their analysis, whereas we considered only passerines. In general, passerines are parasitized by chewing lice less often compared with non-passerines (Sychra et al, 2011;D.…”

Sex-dependent changes in the louse abundance of red-footed falcons (Falco vespertinus)

“…Body size is one of the most relevant characteristics of host organisms; larger birds tend to harbour more lice in comparison to both within (Galloway and Lamb 2017;Chu et al 2019; but see Darolova et al 2001) and across species (Rózsa 1997;Harnos et al 2017). Larger hosts probably provide more durable 'habitat patches', with larger surface areas, and more diverse sets of topographic refugia (Rózsa 1997;Poulin 2011) for lice.…”