Santos Filipe Martins, Sano Nayara Yoshie, Perles Livia, André Marcos Rogério
Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciências Ambientais e Sustentabilidade Agropecuária, Universidade Católica Dom Bosco (UCDB), Campo Grande, Brazil.
Programa de Pós-graduação em Microbiologia, State University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Med Vet Entomol. 2025 Sep;39(3):456-463. doi: 10.1111/mve.12803. Epub 2025 Mar 24.
Parasite relationships are influenced by host size, behaviour, population density and location and can affect the ecological dynamics of their hosts. Urban environments provide new contexts for host-parasite interactions, often leading to changes in infection dynamics when compared with the natural environment. This study focuses on the relationship between five genera of haemoparasites (Anaplasma Theiler, Ehrlichia Moshkovski, Hepatozoon Miller, haemotropic Mycoplasma Nowak and Neorickettsia Philip) found in the South American coati Nasua nasua Linnaeus (Carnivora: Procyonidae), a carnivore highly adaptable to urban areas. Here, we used network analysis to verify the interaction between N. nasua and haemoparasites. We also used a General Linear Model to investigate the influence of biotic and abiotic variables and haemoparasite infections on the functional roles of N. nasua individuals, considering weight, age, sex and tick infestation (number of immature ticks collected). The network revealed low modularity, and none of the biotic variables, immature stages of ticks and location of sampling had any influence on the functional role of N. nasua. The most important haemoparasite in the network was haemotropic Mycoplasma, identified as a key non-hub connector, probably spreading efficiently through frequent agonistic social interactions from N. nasua. These findings underscore the complex interplay between host behaviour, environmental factors and parasite ecology in urban environments, offering insights into managing urban wildlife diseases.
寄生虫关系受到宿主大小、行为、种群密度和位置的影响，并可能影响其宿主的生态动态。城市环境为宿主 - 寄生虫相互作用提供了新的背景，与自然环境相比，通常会导致感染动态的变化。本研究聚焦于在南美浣熊（Nasua nasua Linnaeus，食肉目：浣熊科）中发现的五种血寄生虫属（泰勒无形体、莫氏埃立克体、米勒肝簇虫、嗜血性支原体诺瓦克和菲利普新立克次体）之间的关系，南美浣熊是一种高度适应城市地区的食肉动物。在这里，我们使用网络分析来验证南美浣熊与血寄生虫之间的相互作用。我们还使用一般线性模型来研究生物和非生物变量以及血寄生虫感染对南美浣熊个体功能角色的影响，考虑体重、年龄、性别和蜱虫感染情况（收集到的未成熟蜱虫数量）。网络显示出低模块性，并且生物变量、蜱虫的未成熟阶段和采样位置对南美浣熊的功能角色均无任何影响。网络中最重要的血寄生虫是嗜血性支原体，它被确定为关键的非中心连接者，可能通过南美浣熊频繁的争斗性社会互动有效地传播。这些发现强调了城市环境中宿主行为、环境因素和寄生虫生态学之间的复杂相互作用，为管理城市野生动物疾病提供了见解。
