Abstract
BackgroundIdentifying patterns and drivers of infection risk among host communities is crucial to elucidate disease dynamics and predict infectious disease risk in wildlife populations. Blood parasites of the genera Plasmodium and Haemoproteus are a diverse group of vector-borne protozoan parasites that affect bird populations globally. Despite their widespread distribution and exceptional diversity, factors underlying haemosporidian infection risk in wild bird communities remain poorly understood. While some studies have examined variation in avian haemosporidian risk, researchers have primarily focused on host ecological traits without considering host phylogenetic relationships. In this study, we employ a phylogenetically informed approach to examine the association between host ecological traits and haemosporidian infection risk in endemic bird communities in the Western Ghats Sky Islands.MethodsWe used parasite sequence data based on partial mitochondrial cytochrome b gene, that was amplified from genomic DNA extracted from 1177 birds (28 species) across the Western Ghats to assess infection of birds with haemosporidian parasites. We employed a Bayesian phylogenetic mixed effect modelling approach to test whether haemosporidian infection risk was affected by seven species-specific and four individual-level ecological predictors. We also examined the effect of host phylogenetic relationships on the observed patterns of variation in haemosporidian infection risk by estimating phylogenetic signal.ResultsOur study shows that host ecological traits and host phylogeny differentially influence infection risk by Plasmodium (generalist parasite) and Haemoproteus (specialist parasite). For Plasmodium, we found that sociality, sexual dimorphism and foraging strata were important ecological predictors. For Haemoproteus, patterns of infection risk among host species were associated with sociality, species elevation and individual body condition. Interestingly, variance in infection risk explained by host phylogeny was higher for Haemoproteus parasites compared to Plasmodium.ConclusionsOur study highlights that while host ecological traits promoting parasite exposure and host susceptibility are important determinants of infection risk, host phylogeny also contributes substantially to predicting patterns of haemosporidian infection risk in multi-host communities. Importantly, infection risk is driven by joint contributions of host ecology and host phylogeny and studying these effects together could increase our ability to better understand the drivers of infection risk and predict future disease threats.Graphical abstract
Highlights
Identifying patterns and drivers of infection risk among host communities is crucial to elucidate disease dynamics and predict infectious disease risk in wildlife populations
We observed a strong association between the observed infection probability and predicted infection probability for each species across both genera (Plasmodium, R2 = 0.88, P < 0.001; Haemoproteus, R2 = 0.95, P < 0.001), suggesting that our sampling was adequate to capture the true prevalence for each species (Additional file 1: Figure S1)
The magnitude of effect differs between the two parasite genera, we demonstrate that host ecological traits and host evolutionary history are both important factors in explaining interspecific variation in avian haemosporidian infection risk
Summary
Identifying patterns and drivers of infection risk among host communities is crucial to elucidate disease dynamics and predict infectious disease risk in wildlife populations. Blood parasites of the genera Plasmodium and Haemoproteus are a diverse group of vector-borne protozoan parasites that affect bird populations globally. Despite their widespread distribution and exceptional diversity, factors underlying haemosporidian infection risk in wild bird communities remain poorly understood. We employ a phylogenetically informed approach to examine the association between host ecological traits and haemosporidian infection risk in endemic bird communities in the Western Ghats Sky Islands. Variation in infection risk can occur because of differences in host life history, behavior and environment that underpin patterns of parasite exposure [7,8,9,10]. Some species-specific traits associated with disease susceptibility (e.g. sexual dimorphism) or individual-level traits associated with fitness (e.g. fluctuating asymmetry [17, 18] and body condition [19, 20]) could be important predictors of infection risk in natural communities
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