Extremely low Plasmodium prevalence in wild plovers and coursers from Cape Verde and Madagascar

Josué Martínez-De La Puente,Joseph Ivan Hoffman,Oliver Kruger,Jordi Figuerola,María José Navarro,M Cristina Carmona-Isunza,Tamás Székely,Sama Zefania,Luke J Eberhart-Phillips

doi:10.1186/s12936-017-1892-y

Abstract

BackgroundRelatively little is known about the prevalence of blood parasites in shorebirds, especially those breeding in the tropics. The prevalence of blood parasites of the genera Plasmodium, Haemoproteus and Leucocytozoon was assessed in blood samples from Kentish plovers and cream-coloured coursers in Cape Verde, and samples of Kittlitz’s plovers, Madagascar plovers and white-fronted plovers in Madagascar.ResultsOnly two of these samples were positive for Plasmodium: a Kittlitz’s plover was infected by a generalist lineage of Plasmodium that has already been reported in Europe and Africa, while in a white-fronted plover direct sequencing revealed a previously un-described Plasmodium lineage.ConclusionPotential explanations for the low prevalence of blood parasites include the scarcity of vectors in habitats used by these bird species and their resistance to parasitic infections.

Highlights

Little is known about the prevalence of blood parasites in shorebirds, especially those breed‐ ing in the tropics
A total of 215 samples from 208 adult birds were screened for the presence of blood parasites
Two out of 208 individuals tested positive for Plasmodium parasites (Table 1): a Kittlitz’s plover and a white-fronted plover captured in Madagascar in 2014 and 2015 respectively

Summary

Introduction

Little is known about the prevalence of blood parasites in shorebirds, especially those breed‐ ing in the tropics. Studies based on morphological characterization of blood smears have allowed the identification of diverse blood parasites infecting birds [3]. Molecular approaches, such as amplifying a fragment of the cytochrome b (cyt b) gene, have provided far more detailed insights [4]. These approaches provide greater sensitivity for detecting parasites [5, 6], but see [7] ] and allow more accurate and detailed measurement of specificity [4, 8] and the geographical distribution [9] of blood parasites.

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion