Differential sources of host species heterogeneity influence the transmission and control of multi-host parasites (vol 16, pg 978, 2013)

In a recent article, we described a conceptual and analytical model to identify the key host species for parasite transmission in multi-host communities and used data from 11 gastro-intestinal parasites infecting up to five small mammal host species as an illustrative example of how the framework could be applied. A limitation of these empirical data was uncertainty in the identification of parasite species using egg/oocyst morphology, which could overestimate parasite sharing between host species. Here, we show that the key results of the original analysis, namely that (1) parasites naturally infect multiple host species, but typically rely on a small subset of infected host species for long-term maintenance, (2) that different mechanisms underlie how particular host species dominate transmission and (3) that these different mechanisms influence the predicted efficiency of disease control measures, are robust to analysis of a smaller subset of host-parasite combinations that we have greatest confidence in identifying. We further comment briefly on the need for accurate parasite identification, ideally using molecular techniques to quantify cross-species transmission and differentiate covert host specificity from true host generalism.