Cascading effects of predator activity on tick-borne disease risk
| Autor: | Elena Claudia Coipan, Tim R. Hofmeester, Patrick A. Jansen, Sipke E. van Wieren, H.J. Wijnen, Herbert H. T. Prins, Hein Sprong, Manoj Fonville |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
0106 biological sciences
Ixodes ricinus Forests 01 natural sciences Population density Predation 0302 clinical medicine Bioint Diagnostics Predator Netherlands General Environmental Science Tick-borne disease Ecology biology General Medicine PE&RC Food Safety & Phyt. Research Tick-Borne Diseases Carnivores Adaptation Physiology General Agricultural and Biological Sciences Research Article Nymph Candidatus Neoehrlichia mikurensis 030231 tropical medicine Rodentia Tick 010603 evolutionary biology Rodents General Biochemistry Genetics and Molecular Biology 03 medical and health sciences Biointeractions and Plant Health medicine Animals Borrelia burgdorferi s.l Adaptatiefysiologie Bioint Diagnostics Food Safety & Phyt. Research Population Density Ixodes General Immunology and Microbiology biology.organism_classification medicine.disease Borrelia miyamotoi Predatory Behavior Wildlife Ecology and Conservation WIAS |
| Zdroj: | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Proceedings of the Royal Society. B: Biological Sciences 284 (2017) 1859 Proceedings of the Royal Society. B: Biological Sciences, 284(1859) |
| ISSN: | 0962-8452 |
| Popis: | Predators and competitors of vertebrates can in theory reduce the density of infected nymphs (DIN)—an often-used measure of tick-borne disease risk—by lowering the density of reservoir-competent hosts and/or the tick burden on reservoir-competent hosts. We investigated this possible indirect effect of predators by comparing data from 20 forest plots across the Netherlands that varied in predator abundance. In each plot, we measured the density of questing Ixodes ricinus nymphs (DON), DIN for three pathogens, rodent density, the tick burden on rodents and the activity of mammalian predators. We analysed whether rodent density and tick burden on rodents were correlated with predator activity, and how rodent density and tick burden predicted DON and DIN for the three pathogens. We found that larval burden on two rodent species decreased with activity of two predator species, while DON and DIN for all three pathogens increased with larval burden on rodents, as predicted. Path analyses supported an indirect negative correlation of activity of both predator species with DON and DIN. Our results suggest that predators can indeed lower the number of ticks feeding on reservoir-competent hosts, which implies that changes in predator abundance may have cascading effects on tick-borne disease risk. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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