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Plasmodium prevalence across avian host species is positively associated with exposure to mosquito vectors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2015

MATTHEW C. I. MEDEIROS ,
ROBERT E. RICKLEFS ,
JEFFREY D. BRAWN  and
GABRIEL L. HAMER
MATTHEW C. I. MEDEIROS*
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, University of Missouri-St. Louis, One University Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri 63121-4499, USA Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-2475, USA
ROBERT E. RICKLEFS
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, University of Missouri-St. Louis, One University Boulevard, St. Louis, Missouri 63121-4499, USA
JEFFREY D. BRAWN
Affiliation:
Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, 1102 South Goodwin Ave., Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
GABRIEL L. HAMER
Affiliation:
Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-2475, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Department of Entomology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-2475, USA. E-mail: matthewcimedeiros@tamu.edu
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Summary

The prevalence of vector-borne parasites varies greatly across host species, and this heterogeneity has been used to relate infectious disease susceptibility to host species traits. However, a few empirical studies have directly associated vector-borne parasite prevalence with exposure to vectors across hosts. Here, we use DNA sequencing of blood meals to estimate utilization of different avian host species by Culex mosquitoes, and relate utilization by these malaria vectors to avian Plasmodium prevalence. We found that avian host species that are highly utilized as hosts by avian malaria vectors are significantly more likely to have Plasmodium infections. However, the effect was not consistent among individual Plasmodium taxa. Exposure to vector bites may therefore influence the relative number of all avian Plasmodium infections among host species, while other processes, such as parasite competition and host-parasite coevolution, delimit the host distributions of individual Plasmodium species. We demonstrate that links between avian malaria susceptibility and host traits can be conditioned by patterns of exposure to vectors. Linking vector utilization rates to host traits may be a key area of future research to understand mechanisms that produce variation in the prevalence of vector-borne pathogens among host species.

Keywords

Avian malaria parasitesmalaria vectorshost–vector interactionsmosquito feeding patternsPlasmodium
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 142 , Issue 13 , November 2015 , pp. 1612 - 1620
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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