Haemosporidian prevalence in Southern Grey Shrike Lanius meridionalis nestlings in the Iberian Peninsula: lower prevalence than previously reported

Abstract

ABSTRACT We report a new analysis of haemosporidian occurrence in 392 Southern Grey Shrike Lanius meridionalis nestlings previously reported in Hernández et al. (2017. Haemosporidian prevalence in Southern Grey Shrike Lanius meridionalis nestlings: impact on body condition and geographic distribution in the Iberian Peninsula. Bird Study 64: 362–373). The previous findings have since been suspected of suffering from contamination by DNA samples from another species. The new analysis showed a prevalence of 1% with a single Leucocytozoon lineage (ENCIR02), distributed in two of the three populations studied.