Molecular prevalence and phylogenetic relationship of and parasites of owls in Thailand: Data from a rehabilitation centre.

Owls are nocturnal raptors that are prevalently infected with haemosporidian parasites wordwide. These birds were commonly submitted to the Kasetsart University Raptor Rehabilitation Unit, Kasetsart University, Thailand and were examined using PCR-based methods for the presence of haemosporidian infections of by the genera and . Blood samples from 167 individual owls belonging to 12 species common in Thailand were collected between September 2012 and February 2018. The overall prevalence of haemosporidians was 34.1%, with infections (25.1%) being more prevalent than infections (9.0%). The prevalence of both and parasites was similar in all seasons of the year. Molecular characterization revealed 17 new haemosporidian parasite lineages (11 and six ), with genetic variation among partial cytochrome sequences ranging from 0.0% to 3.6% in lineages and 0.2%-8.8% in lineages. Phylogenetic analysis showed that all lineages detected in owls appeared in one well-supported clade together with other parasites belonging to the subgenus, indicating their close evolutionary relationship and common transmission modality by biting midges. This study showes the existence of prominent non-described haemosporidian parasite diversity in Thai owls and provides baseline molecular information for further research on the genetic diversity of owl haemosporidian parasites. New DNA sequence information can be used for the diagnosis of owl infections, which have been often reported during rehabilitation planning.