Phenological and intrinsic predictors of mite and haemacoccidian infection dynamics in a Mediterranean community of lizards.

Robby M Drechsler,Josabel Belliure,Rodrigo Megía-Palma

doi:10.1017/s0031182021000858

Robby M Drechsler, Josabel Belliure + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1017/s0031182021000858

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Abstract

Ectotherms are vulnerable to environmental changes and their parasites are biological health indicators. Thus, parasite load in ectotherms is expected to show a marked phenology. This study investigates temporal host–parasite dynamics in a lizard community in Eastern Spain during an entire annual activity period. The hosts investigated were Acanthodactylus erythrurus, Psammodromus algirus and Psammodromus edwardsianus, three lizard species coexisting in a mixed habitat of forests and dunes, providing a range of body sizes, ecological requirements and life history traits. Habitat and climate were considered as potential environmental predictors of parasite abundance, while size, body condition and sex as intrinsic predictors. Linear models based on robust estimates were fitted to analyse parasite abundance and prevalence. Ectoparasitic mites and blood parasites from two haemococcidian genera were found: Lankesterella spp. and Schellackia spp. Habitat type was the only predictor explaining the abundance of all parasites, being mostly higher in the forest than in the dunes. The results suggest that particularities in each host–parasite relationship should be accounted even when parasites infect close-related hosts under the same environmental pressures. They also support that lizard parasites can be biomarkers of environmental perturbation, but the relationships need to be carefully interpreted for each host–parasite assemblage.

Highlights

Parasites thrive to the expense of other organisms and are usually part of intricate ecological webs
The abundances of all lizard species were significantly higher in the forest (Table S1); a constant effect observed across the activity period (Fig. S2)
Mites were more prevalent than blood parasites in the three host species (Table 2)

Summary

Introduction

Parasites thrive to the expense of other organisms and are usually part of intricate ecological webs. Understanding the dynamics of host–parasite interactions has been a major aim in evolutionary ecology, and studies at the community scale are needed if we want to understand the influence that hosts and parasites diversity have on each other (Vázquez et al, 2005, 2007). Individuals subjected to stressful environments can reallocate energy to body functions other than immune defence to cope with stress (Adamo et al, 2017). This may increase their susceptibility to parasitic infections (Oppliger et al, 1998). Variation in parasite abundance in correlation with environmental gradients of stress can be interpreted as biomarkers of environmental costs on the hosts’ immune defences (Megía-Palma et al, 2020a). Temporal dynamics of parasite abundance have scarcely been studied in particular hosts such as reptiles (Schall and Marghoob, 1995)

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