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Life history characteristics of birds influence patterns of tick parasitism.
Brinkerhoff, R Jory; Dang, Lena; Streby, Henry M; Gimpel, Maren.
Affiliation
  • Brinkerhoff RJ; Department of Biology, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, USA.
  • Dang L; School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
  • Streby HM; Department of Biology, University of Richmond, Richmond, VA, USA.
  • Gimpel M; Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA.
Infect Ecol Epidemiol ; 9(1): 1547096, 2019.
Article in En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-30598737
Introduction: Birds serve as reservoirs for tick-borne pathogens as well as hosts for multiple tick species of public health relevance.  Birds may perpetuate life cycles of vectors and vector-borne pathogens and disperse disease vectors over long distances, supplementing populations at range margins or seeding invading populations beyond the edges of current tick distributions.  Our goal for this study was to identify life history characteristics of birds that most strongly affect tick parasitism. Materials and Methods: We collected 6203 ticks from 5426 birds from two sites in eastern North America and used field-derived parasitism data and published literature to analyze impacts of life history factors on tick parasitism in birds. Results and Discussion: We identified body size and nest site to have the strongest impact on tick prevalence and abundance in the songbird species included in this study.  Our findings reveal site-independent patterns in tick parasitism on birds and suggest that physical more than behavioral characteristics may influence a bird species' suitability as a host for ticks. Conclusions: The data and results published here will contribute to a growing body of literature and information on bird-tick interactions and will help elucidate patterns of tick and tick-borne pathogen geographic expansion.
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Full text: 1 Collection: 01-internacional Database: MEDLINE Type of study: Prognostic_studies / Risk_factors_studies Language: En Journal: Infect Ecol Epidemiol Year: 2019 Document type: Article Affiliation country: United States Country of publication: United States

Full text: 1 Collection: 01-internacional Database: MEDLINE Type of study: Prognostic_studies / Risk_factors_studies Language: En Journal: Infect Ecol Epidemiol Year: 2019 Document type: Article Affiliation country: United States Country of publication: United States