The present study reports the presence of N. caninum DNA by PCR in brain tissues of house sparrows. The results showed that 6 (2.8%) of brain samples were positive for N. caninum. This is the first report for detection of N. caninum in sparrows, in Khuzestan Province. The results suggest that the meat of infected sparrows can be the source for dogs' infection.

the present study reports the presence of n. caninum dna by pcr in brain tissues of house sparrows. the results showed that 6 (2.8%) of brain samples were positive for n. caninum. this is the first report for detection of n. caninum in sparrows, in khuzestan province. the results suggest that the meat of infected sparrows can be the source for dogs' infection.

Abstract Hosts can manage parasitic infections using an array of tactics, which are likely to vary contingent on coevolutionary history between the host and the parasite. Here we asked whether coping ability of congeners that differ in host-parasite coevolutionary history differed in response to experimental infections with a coccidian parasite. House sparrows (Passer domesticus) and gray-heade...

Cryptosporidiosis is a cosmopolitan parasitosis that affects a wide range of hosts including birds. As information concerning Cryptosporidium in birds is limited, the present study examined the prevalence and genotypes of Cryptosporidium in Java sparrows in Beijing and Shangqiu, northern China. Three hundred and fifty fecal samples were collected from Java sparrows (Lonchura oryzivora, 225 whit...

Population trends of Florida Grasshopper Sparrows ( Ammodramus savannarum floridanus ) at Avon Park Air Force Range (APAFR) have been monitored using standardized point counts since 1996. Data collected from 1996-2001 were used to examine the spatial distribution of Florida Grasshopper Sparrows during those years. That analysis identified areas consistently used by breeding sparrows and estimat...

Determining the effect of an invasive species on enzootic pathogen dynamics is critical for understanding both human epidemics and wildlife epizootics. Theoretical models suggest that when a naive species enters an established host-parasite system, the new host may either reduce ('dilute') or increase ('spillback') pathogen transmission to native hosts. There are few empirical data to evaluate ...

Tree sparrows (Passer montanus) are widely distributed in all seasons in many countries. In this study, a survey and relevant experiments on avian influenza (AI) in tree sparrows were conducted. The results suggested that the receptor for avian influenza viruses (AIVs), SAα2,3Gal, is abundant in the respiratory tract of tree sparrows, and most of the tree sparrows infected experimentally with t...

Urbanization strongly affects biodiversity, altering natural communities and often leading to a reduced species richness. Yet, despite its increasingly recognized importance, how urbanization impacts on the health of individual animals, wildlife populations and on disease ecology remains poorly understood. To test whether, and how, urbanization-driven ecosystem alterations influence pathogen dy...

We captured Nelson's, Saltmarsh and Seaside Sparrows (Ammodramus nelsoni, A. caudacutus and A. maritimus) at three salt marsh sites near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina during five non-breeding seasons (September through April, 2006-2011). We analyzed breast feather samples from all of these seasons and blood and first primary feather (P1) samples from three seasons (2008-2011) for mercury (...

We tested the hypothesis that memory or perceptual limitations imposed by song repertoires contrain the ability of song birds to recognize their neighbours by song. Using operant conditioning procedures, we trained male song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) (median repertoire size = 8) to discriminate between two artificial song sparrow repertoires of 32 songs each (64 songs total). Both song sparr...