A meta-analysis of parasite virulence in nestling birds

Moller, A P and Arriero, E and Lobato, E and Merino, S

Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society (2009) 84: 567–588

DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-185X.2009.00087.x

Abstract

Parasitism is a common cause of host mortality, but little is known about the ecological factors affecting parasite virulence (the rate of mortality among infected hosts). We reviewed 117 field estimates of parasite-induced nestling mortality in birds, showing that there was significant consistency in mortality among host and parasite taxa. Virulence increased towards the tropics in analyses of both species-specific data and phylogenetic analyses. We found evidence of greater parasite prevalence being associated with reduced virulence. Furthermore, bird species breeding in open nest sites suffered from greater parasite-induced mortality than hole-nesting species. By contrast, parasite specialization and generation time of parasites relative to that of hosts explained little variation in virulence. Likewise, there were little or no significant effects of host genetic variability, host sociality, host migration, host insular distribution or host survival on parasite virulence. These findings suggest that parasite-induced nestling mortality in birds is mainly determined by geographical location and to a smaller extent nest site and prevalence.

Citation

Moller, A. P., Arriero, E., Lobato, E., & Merino, S. (2009). A meta-analysis of parasite virulence in nestling birds. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 84(4), 567–588. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-185X.2009.00087.x Animals, Birds, Virulence, Parasitic Diseases, Animal/mortality/parasitology, Bird Diseases/parasitology, Parasites/pathogenicity

Keywords

• Animals
• Birds
• Virulence
• Parasitic Diseases
• Animal/mortality/parasitology
• Bird Diseases/parasitology
• Parasites/pathogenicity