Although levels of parasitism can vary greatly among individual bats of the same species, little is known about the characteristics of hosts that affect such variation. Bats were captured via mist nets from June 1995 to July 1997 from 28 localities throughout Paraguay. Over 17 500 ectoparasites were collected from 2909 bats; however, analyses of ectoparasite abundance were restricted to more ab...

Ectoparasites are an important factor in bat health due to emergent diseases and their associated threats to global public health. The diverse foraging habits of bats expose them to different surfaces which may influence ectoparasite infestations. In spite of these, most studies often overlook dietary specialisations when observing ectoparasite loads. The present paper quantitatively investigat...

Prevalence of bat ectoparasites on sympatric Myotis lucifugus and M. septentrionalis was quantitatively characterized in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick by making systematic collections at swarming sites. Six species of ectoparasite were recorded, including Myodopsylla insignis, Spinturnix americanus, Cimex adjunctus, Macronyssu scrosbyi, Androlaelap scasalis, and an unknown species of the genus ...

Patterns of aggregation of species or individuals may result from combinations of interspecifi c interactions such as competition, facilitation, or apparent facilitation, as well as from equivalent responses to environmental factors. Host – parasite systems are ideal for the investigation of mechanisms that structure assemblages. Interspecifi c aggregation is documented for multiple groups that...

Currently, disgust is regarded as the main adaptation for defence against pathogens and parasites in humans. Disgust’s motivational and behavioural features, including withdrawal, nausea, appetite suppression, and the urge to vomit, defend effectively against ingesting or touching sources of pathogens. However, ectoparasites do not attack their hosts via ingestion, but rather actively attach th...

background: the species of ectoparasites that live on a specific host in a geographical region form an ectoparasite community. species abundance distributions describe the number of individuals observed for each different species that is encountered within a community. based on properties of the species abundance distribution, the expected total number of species present in the community can be...

Fitness consequences of ectoparasitism are expressed over the lifetime of their hosts in relation to variation in composition and abundance of the entire ectoparasite community and across all host life history stages. However, most empirical studies have focused on parasite species-specific effects and only during some life history stages. We conducted a systematic, year-long survey of an ectop...

Determining the structure of ectoparasite-host networks will enable disease ecologists to better understand and predict the spread of vector-borne diseases. If these networks have consistent properties, then studying the structure of well-understood networks could lead to extrapolation of these properties to others, including those that support emerging pathogens. Borrowing a quantitative measu...