Frank Hannah K, Mendenhall Chase D, Judson Seth D, Daily Gretchen C, Hadly Elizabeth A
Department of Biology Stanford University Stanford California.
Department of Biology Stanford University Stanford California; Center for Conservation Biology Department of Biology Stanford University Stanford California; The Nature Conservancy Arlington Virginia.
Ecol Evol. 2016 Jun 21;6(14):4898-909. doi: 10.1002/ece3.2245. eCollection 2016 Jul.
While anthropogenic impacts on parasitism of wildlife are receiving growing attention, whether these impacts vary in a sex-specific manner remains little explored. Differences between the sexes in the effect of parasites, linked to anthropogenic activity, could lead to uneven sex ratios and higher population endangerment. We sampled 1108 individual bats in 18 different sites across an agricultural mosaic landscape in southern Costa Rica to investigate the relationships between anthropogenic impacts (deforestation and reductions in host species richness) and bat fly ectoparasitism of 35 species of Neotropical bats. Although female and male bat assemblages were similar across the deforestation gradient, bat fly assemblages tracked their hosts closely only on female bats. We found that in female hosts, parasite abundance per bat decreased with increasing bat species richness, while in male hosts, parasite abundance increased. We hypothesize the differences in the parasite-disturbance relationship are due to differences in roosting behavior between the sexes. We report a sex-specific parasite-disturbance relationship and argue that sex differences in anthropogenic impacts on wildlife parasitism could impact long-term population health and survival.
虽然人为因素对野生动物寄生虫感染的影响日益受到关注，但这些影响是否存在性别差异仍鲜为人知。与人为活动相关的寄生虫对不同性别的影响差异，可能导致性别比例失衡和更高的种群濒危风险。我们在哥斯达黎加南部农业镶嵌景观的18个不同地点对1108只蝙蝠个体进行了采样，以研究人为影响（森林砍伐和宿主物种丰富度降低）与35种新热带蝙蝠的蝙蝠蝇体外寄生虫感染之间的关系。尽管在森林砍伐梯度上，雌性和雄性蝙蝠群落相似，但蝙蝠蝇群落仅在雌性蝙蝠身上紧密追踪其宿主。我们发现，在雌性宿主中，每只蝙蝠的寄生虫丰度随着蝙蝠物种丰富度的增加而降低，而在雄性宿主中，寄生虫丰度则增加。我们推测寄生虫与干扰关系的差异是由于两性在栖息行为上的差异。我们报告了一种性别特异性的寄生虫与干扰关系，并认为人为因素对野生动物寄生虫感染的性别差异可能会影响种群的长期健康和生存。
