Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Department of Life Science, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan.
Parasit Vectors. 2017 Nov 25;10(1):587. doi: 10.1186/s13071-017-2535-4.
A variety of human diseases transmitted by arthropod vectors, including ticks, are emerging around the globe. Birds are known to be hosts of ticks and can disperse exotic ticks and tick-borne pathogens. In Taiwan, previous studies have focused predominantly on mammals, leaving the role of birds in the maintenance of ticks and dissemination of tick-borne pathogens undetermined.
Ticks were collected opportunistically when birds were studied from 1995 to 2013. Furthermore, to improve knowledge on the prevalence and mean load of tick infestation on birds in Taiwan, ticks were thoroughly searched for when birds were mist-netted at seven sites between September 2014 and April 2016 in eastern Taiwan. Ticks were identified based on both morphological and molecular information and were screened for potential tick-borne pathogens, including the genera Anaplasma, Babesia, Borrelia, Ehrlichia and Rickettsia. Finally, a list of hard tick species collected from birds in Taiwan was compiled based on past work and the current study.
Nineteen ticks (all larvae) were recovered from four of the 3096 unique mist-netted bird individuals, yielding a mean load of 0.006 ticks/individual and an overall prevalence of 0.13%. A total of 139 ticks from birds, comprising 48 larvae, 35 nymphs, 55 adults and one individual of unknown life stage, were collected from 1995 to 2016, and 11 species of four genera were identified, including three newly recorded species (Haemaphysalis wellingtoni, Ixodes columnae and Ixodes turdus). A total of eight tick-borne pathogens were detected, with five species (Borrelia turdi, Anaplasma sp. clone BJ01, Ehrlichia sp. BL157-9, Rickettsia helvetica and Rickettsia monacensis) not previously isolated in Taiwan. Overall, 16 tick species of five genera have been recorded feeding on birds, including nine species first discovered in this study.
Our study demonstrates the paucity of information on ticks of birds and emphasizes the need for more research on ticks of birds in Taiwan and Southeast Asia. Moreover, some newly recorded ticks and tick-borne pathogens were found only on migratory birds, demonstrating the necessity of further surveillance on these highly mobile species.
包括蜱虫在内的通过节肢动物媒介传播的各种人类疾病正在全球范围内出现。众所周知，鸟类是蜱虫的宿主，它们可以传播外来蜱虫和蜱传病原体。在台湾，以前的研究主要集中在哺乳动物上，鸟类在维持蜱虫和传播蜱传病原体方面的作用仍未确定。
1995 年至 2013 年，在研究鸟类时，我们会随机收集蜱虫。此外，为了提高对台湾鸟类蜱虫感染率和平均感染程度的认识，我们在 2014 年 9 月至 2016 年 4 月期间在台湾东部的七个地点用捕鸟网对鸟类进行了彻底搜索。我们根据形态和分子信息对蜱虫进行了鉴定，并对潜在的蜱传病原体进行了筛选，包括属 Anaplasma、Babesia、Borrelia、Ehrlichia 和 Rickettsia。最后，根据过去的工作和本研究，我们编制了一份从台湾鸟类中收集的硬蜱物种清单。
从 3096 只独特的捕鸟网个体中，有四只个体中发现了 19 只蜱虫（均为幼虫），每只个体的平均感染率为 0.006 只，总感染率为 0.13%。1995 年至 2016 年期间，从鸟类中总共收集到 139 只蜱虫，包括 48 只幼虫、35 只若虫、55 只成虫和 1 只未知生活阶段的个体，鉴定出 4 个属的 11 个物种，包括三种新记录种（长角血蜱、柱形硬蜱和画眉硬蜱）。共检测到 8 种蜱传病原体，其中 5 种（土耳其钝缘蜱、BJ01 株未定种属立克次体、BL157-9 株未定种属埃立克体、瑞士立克次体和单胞菌立克次体）以前在台湾没有分离到。总的来说，有 16 种 5 个属的蜱虫以鸟类为食，其中 9 种是在本研究中首次发现的。
我们的研究表明，关于鸟类蜱虫的信息仍然匮乏，强调需要在台湾和东南亚地区对鸟类蜱虫进行更多研究。此外，一些新记录的蜱虫和蜱传病原体仅在候鸟上发现，这表明需要对这些高度移动的物种进行进一步监测。
