Abstract
Infection probability, load, and community structure of helminths varies strongly between and within animal populations. This can be ascribed to environmental stochasticity or due to individual characteristics of the host such as their age or sex. Other, but understudied, factors are the hosts' behavior and co-infection patterns. In this study, we used the multimammate mouse (Mastomys natalensis) as a model system to investigate how the hosts' sex, age, exploration behavior, and viral infection history affects their infection risk, parasitic load, and community structure of gastrointestinal helminths. We hypothesized that the hosts' exploration behavior would play a key role in the risk for infection by different gastrointestinal helminths, whereby highly explorative individuals would have a higher infection risk leading to a wider diversity of helminths and a larger load compared to less explorative individuals. Fieldwork was performed in Morogoro, Tanzania, where we trapped a total of 214 individual mice. Their exploratory behavior was characterized using a hole-board test after which we collected the helminths inside their gastrointestinal tract. During our study, we found helminths belonging to eight different genera: Hymenolepis sp., Protospirura muricola, Syphacia sp., Trichuris mastomysi, Gongylonema sp., Pterygodermatites sp., Raillietina sp., and Inermicapsifer sp. and one family: Trichostrongylidae. Hierarchical modeling of species communities (HMSC) was used to investigate the effect of the different host-related factors on the infection probability, parasite load, and community structure of these helminths. Our results show that species richness was higher in adults and in females compared to juveniles and males, respectively. Contrary to our expectations, we found that less explorative individuals had higher infection probability with different helminths resulting in a higher diversity, which could be due to a higher exposure rate to these helminths and/or behavioral modification due to the infection.
Highlights
Helminths (Nematoda, Cestoda, and Trematoda), or parasitic worms, are a well-studied and widespread parasitic group with a large impact on human health
We investigated the effect of different intrinsic factors on the infection risk and parasite load of the whole gastrointestinal helminth community in M. natalensis
We found that adults were more likely to become infected with almost all parasite species resulting in a higher species richness in adults compared to juveniles
Summary
Helminths (Nematoda, Cestoda, and Trematoda), or parasitic worms, are a well-studied and widespread parasitic group with a large impact on human health. In low to middle income countries, more than one billion people are infected with soiltransmitted helminths alone [1, 2]. They have large economic consequences as well, for example in the livestock industry [3, 4]. The community structure of these helminths can vary between populations, due to differences in environmental conditions such as temperature, rainfall, and urbanization [5,6,7,8] as well as within populations, where some individuals are infected with a wider diversity of helminths than others. Multiple parasitic infections (i.e., co-infections) within a single host occurs very frequently in the wild and may have a large effect on both the infection heterogeneity among individuals as well as on the parasitic communities within a host [9,10,11,12]
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