期刊
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR PARASITOLOGY
卷 52, 期 4, 页码 217-224出版社
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpara.2021.10.010
关键词
Core-periphery organization; Species importance; Antagonistic interactions; Modularity; Mutualistic ectoparasites; Lesser bulldog bat
类别
资金
- Sao Paulo Research Foundation, FAPESP, Brazil [2011/16621-9, 2016/20792-7, 2013/05131-6]
- Foundation for Research Support of the State of Minas Gerais, FAPEMIG, Brazil [RED-00253-16]
- Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel - Brazil, CAPES [001]
- Brazilian Council for Scientific and Technological Development, CNPq [306216/2018-3]
Individual-based networks play a crucial role in understanding the interactions between bats and their parasites. The variation among individuals can affect the dynamics of parasites. This study found that in the network of lesser bulldog bats and bat flies, male individuals with greater body mass take on important roles, while the importance of females is not related to body mass or forearm length. Additionally, the abundance of a certain parasite species also influences the network structure.
Individual-based networks provide the building blocks for community-level networks. However, network studies of bats and their parasites have focused only on the species level. Intrapopulation variation may allow certain host individuals to play important roles in the dynamics of the parasites. Therefore, we evaluated how the variation in host sex, body size, ectoparasite abundance and co-occurrence configure individual-based networks of the lesser bulldog bat Noctilio albiventris and bat flies. We expected bat individuals with greater body mass and forearms acting as the core in the network. We also expected males to play a more important role in the network. We sampled a network of N. albiventris bat individuals and their bat flies to describe the structure of an antagonistic individual-based network. We aimed to identify the most relevant bat individuals in the network, focusing on the implications inherent to each of the following approaches: (i) core-periphery organization; (ii) modularity; (iii) species level metrics; and (iv) the main ecological driver of bat individual roles in the network, using niche-based predictors (body mass, forearm and sex). We showed that a network of N. albiventris individuals and their bat flies had low modularity containing a persistent nucleus of individuals and bat flies with well-established interactions. Male individuals with greater body mass played an important role in the network, while for females neither mass nor forearm length were important predictors of their role in the network. Finally, individuals with a high abundance of Paradyschiria parvula played a core role. These results provide an alternative perspective to understand the patterns and mechanisms of interspecific interactions between parasites on the host, as well as sex-biased parasitism.(c) 2021 Australian Society for Parasitology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
作者
我是这篇论文的作者
点击您的名字以认领此论文并将其添加到您的个人资料中。
推荐
暂无数据