Abstract
Anthropogenic landscape changes such as land use change and habitat fragmentation are known to alter wildlife diversity. Since host and parasite diversities are strongly connected, landscape changes are also likely to change wildlife parasite diversity with implication for wildlife health. However, research linking anthropogenic landscape change and wildlife parasite diversity is limited, especially comparing effects of land use change and habitat fragmentation, which often cooccur but may affect parasite diversity substantially differently. Here, we assessed how anthropogenic land use change (presence of plantation, livestock foraging and human settlement) and habitat fragmentation may change the gastrointestinal parasite diversity of wild mammalian host species (n = 23) in Anamalai hills, India. We found that presence of plantations, and potentially livestock, significantly increased parasite diversity due possibly to spillover of parasites from livestock to wildlife. However, effect of habitat fragmentation on parasite diversity was not significant. Together, our results showed how human activities may increase wildlife parasite diversity within human-dominated landscape and highlighted the complex pattern of parasite diversity distribution as a result of cooccurrence of multiple anthropogenic landscape changes.
Highlights
Land use change can affect parasites both directly and indirectly
To assess the effect of land use change and habitat fragmentation on parasite diversity, we studied gastrointestinal parasites of wild mammalian hosts across rainforest fragments in Anamalai hills
We demonstrated that human-driven land use changes increased parasite diversity in a rainforest habitat and presence of potential spillover of parasites from livestock to wildlife
Summary
Land use change can affect parasites both directly and indirectly. By altering environment (for example, through pollution), land use change may render transmission of environmentally-transmitted parasites difficult. The Anamalai (Elephant hills in Tamil) hills of southern India is a highly biodiverse rainforest habitat of Western Ghats, which holds about 30% of India’s plant and vertebrate species diversity in less than 6% of the country’s area[48] It is one of the most altered natural habitats in India and typifies different levels of land use change and habitat fragmentation rampant in Indian wildlife habitats. Highly-modified fragments contain within them human settlements and have higher livestock pressures than other remote, less disturbed fragments In spite of such high levels of land use change and habitat fragmentation, the Anamalai hills still harbour a large number of wildlife whose ranges often unavoidably overlap with humans and livestock[50,51,52,53]. To assess the effect of land use change (plantation, livestock foraging and human settlements) and habitat fragmentation on parasite diversity, we studied gastrointestinal parasites of wild mammalian hosts across rainforest fragments in Anamalai hills. It is possible that land use change and habitat fragmentation may not significantly impact parasite diversity either by not impacting host community or by not spillover from non-native hosts such as livestock and humans
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