Abstract
Avian malaria and related haemosporidians (genera Haemoproteus, Plasmodium and Leucocytozoon) infect most clades of bird. Although these parasites are present in almost all continents, they have been irregularly studied across different geographical regions. Despite the high bird diversity in Asia, the diversity of avian haemosporidians in this region is largely unknown. Moreover, anthropogenic changes to habitats in tropical regions may have a profound impact on the overall composition of haemosporidian communities. Here we analyzed the diversity and host association of bird haemosporidians from areas with different degrees of anthropogenic disturbance in Myanmar, revealing an unexplored diversity of these parasites (27% of newly-discovered haemosporidian lineages, and 64% of new records of host–parasite assemblages) in these tropical environments. This newly discovered diversity will be valuable for detecting host range and transmission areas of haemosporidian parasites. We also found slightly higher haemosporidian prevalence and diversity in birds from paddy fields than in individuals from urban areas and hills, thus implying that human alteration of natural environments may affect the dynamics of vector-borne diseases. These outcomes provide valuable insights for biodiversity conservation management in threatened tropical ecosystems.
Highlights
Predicting and mapping the distribution, abundance, and diversity of species is fundamental for resource management and biodiversity conservation planning [1]
We screened a total of 127 individuals belonging to 32 bird species from Myanmar in the search for haemosporidian parasites
There is a lack of information about the diversity of avian haemosporidian parasites in this tropical region of Southeast Asia
Summary
Predicting and mapping the distribution, abundance, and diversity of species is fundamental for resource management and biodiversity conservation planning [1] This is important in the current global change scenario, where processes such as climate change and land-use changes are globally impairing wildlife populations [2,3]. Most of the studies on interactions between organisms only include competition and predation as the major factors driving species diversity, whereas parasites have been comparatively poorly investigated [4]. This is remarkable, given the abundance, ubiquity, and extraordinary diversity of parasites [6,7], and because parasites might affect animal diversity in a similar way to predators [8]. Because host–parasite interactions represent a selective pressure maintaining genetic variability in host populations, characterizing the structure of parasite communities is crucial to understanding ecosystem diversity and functioning [9,10,11]
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