Prevalence and genetic characterization of strains isolated from 31 wild Passeriformes collected in North-Central Oklahoma.

Passerine birds are widely distributed and adapted to various habitats, therefore they are commonly exposed to, and infected with The purpose of our project was to determine the prevalence and genotypes of in 31 different species of passerines collected as mortalities due to window collisions in North-Central Oklahoma. DNA was extracted from breast tissue and subjected to PCR with primers that amplify a portion of the B1 gene. Genotyping was based on a portion of the infected birds based on a multiplex PCR followed by RFLP of 12 markers. Of 103 birds comprising 31 species, the overall prevalence (95% confidence interval) of infection was 33.0% (24.1‒42.6%). Significant differences in the proportion of in birds according to sex or weight were not observed. However, sample sizes of each species were small and prevented a robust analysis of according to those biological variables. Genotyping of in a subset of 13 infected individuals of 7 species revealed 4 genotypes, according to the Toxoplasma Data Base: #54, #139, #20, and #220. Our results, while hampered by a small sample size for each bird species, suggest that infection with in Oklahoma, is common in both migrant and resident passerines.