Dargent Felipe, Morrill André, Alisauskas Ray T, McLaughlin J Daniel, Shutler Dave, Forbes Mark R
Department of Biology, Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S-5B6, Canada.
Environment Canada, Prairie & Northern Wildlife Research Centre, 115 Perimeter Road, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 0X4, Canada; Department of Biology, University of Saskatchewan, 112 Science Place, Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5E2, Canada.
Int J Parasitol Parasites Wildl. 2017 Feb 3;6(1):22-28. doi: 10.1016/j.ijppaw.2017.01.003. eCollection 2017 Apr.
The patterns and mechanisms by which biological diversity is associated with parasite infection risk are important to study because of their potential implications for wildlife population's conservation and management. Almost all research in this area has focused on host species diversity and has neglected parasite diversity, despite evidence that parasites are important drivers of community structure and ecosystem processes. Here, we assessed whether presence or abundance of each of nine helminth species parasitizing lesser snow geese () was associated with indices of parasite diversity (i.e. species richness and Shannon's Diversity Index). We found repeated instances of focal parasite presence and abundance having significant positive co-variation with diversity measures of other parasites. These results occurred both within individual samples and for combinations of all samples. Whereas host condition and parasite facilitation could be drivers of the patterns we observed, other host- or parasite-level effects, such as age or sex class of host or taxon of parasite, were discounted as explanatory variables. Our findings of recurring and positive associations between focal parasite abundance and diversity underscore the importance of moving beyond pairwise species interactions and contexts, and of including the oft-neglected parasite species diversity in infection-diversity studies.
生物多样性与寄生虫感染风险相关的模式和机制是重要的研究对象，因为它们对野生动物种群的保护和管理具有潜在影响。尽管有证据表明寄生虫是群落结构和生态系统过程的重要驱动因素，但该领域几乎所有研究都集中在宿主物种多样性上，而忽视了寄生虫多样性。在此，我们评估了寄生于小雪雁（ ）的九种蠕虫物种中每一种的存在或丰度是否与寄生虫多样性指标（即物种丰富度和香农多样性指数）相关。我们发现，特定寄生虫的存在和丰度与其他寄生虫的多样性指标存在反复出现的显著正协变关系。这些结果在单个样本以及所有样本的组合中均有出现。虽然宿主状况和寄生虫促进作用可能是我们观察到的模式的驱动因素，但其他宿主或寄生虫层面的影响因素，如宿主的年龄或性别类别或寄生虫的分类单元，作为解释变量被排除。我们关于特定寄生虫丰度与多样性之间反复出现的正相关的研究结果强调了超越成对物种相互作用和背景进行研究的重要性，以及在感染 - 多样性研究中纳入经常被忽视的寄生虫物种多样性的重要性。
