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Intl. J. of Super Species Research 2012, Vol.2, No.1, 1
-
6
http://ijssr.sophiapublisher.com
1
A Report Open Access
Host-Parasite Interactions between Birds and Feather Mites
Tawanda Tarakini
1,2
,
Mikis Bastian
1
1. Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, Leeds, UK
2. Department of Wildlife and Safari Management, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Bag 7724 Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe
Corresponding author email:
tawandatizora@gmail.com
;
Authors
International Journal of Super Species Research, 2012, Vol.2, No.1 doi: 10.5376/ijssr.2012.02.0001
Received: 25 May, 2012
Accepted: 28 Jun., 2012
Published: 05 Jul., 2012
This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any
medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article:
Tarakini and Bastian., 2012,
Host-Parasite Interactions between Birds and Feather Mites, International Journal of Super Species Research, 2012, Vol.2, No.1
1-6
(doi: 10.5376/ijssr.2012.02.0001)
Abstract
There is current uncertainty on whether feather mites are a cause or consequence of poor body condition in birds. We
aimed at investigating the bird-mite relationships and elucidating the functional significance of feather mites on birds found on the
Urra Field station, Sorbas, in Almeria province, south-east Spain. We captured birds using mist nest and assessed birds for body
condition (weight, fat and pectoral muscles), mite distribution on the wings and tested for diurnal changes in mite abundance. The
Kruskal-Wallis test was used to test for differences in mite abundance across species, sex, age and to test for differences in mite
distribution on wings across species while the Fisher`s exact test was used to test for diurnal mite abundance. There were no
significant differences in mite abundance between males and females in blackcaps, house sparrows, Sardinian and Willow warblers.
There were significant differences in the abundance of mites on Blackcaps, house sparrows, sardinian and willow warblers. This
study was carried out just before the breeding season, thus the juveniles may have been “mite-contaminated” by adults during the
winter. Also, blackcaps could potentially be carrying different mite species, collected enroute during their migration. With more
observational data over different time of day and seasons, investigations could be carried out to describe mite movements depending
on varying environmental factors.
Keywords
Feather mites; Ectoral muscle; Ody weight; Fat condition; Mite hosts
Feather mites are a taxonomically diverse group of
arthropods that live permanently on birds and
represent the most common type of bird-mite
associations (Proctor and Owens, 2000). Feather
mites not only possess several morphological
adaptations for living on birds but exhibit a range of
specific behavioural responses to the constantly
changing environmental conditions on wing feathers
(Jovani and Serrano, 2004; Proctor, 2003). While
mites have the ability to potentially inhabit all feathers
of the wing - especially in the structurally similar
wing feathers of passerines - they are known to have
very clear microhabitat preferences (Bridge, 2003;
Proctor, 2003; Thompson et al., 1997). Feather mites
are sensitive to a number of environmental variables
and their distribution on wings vary with conditions
(e.g. moulting feathers, temperatures, direct sunlight),
often resulting in significant seasonal, daily, or
short-term shifts (Proctor, 2003).
The exact causes of differences in mites abundance
and distribution is currently debatable (Proctor and
Owens, 2000) as there is little evidence to prove high
parasite load as a cause or consequence of poor host
physiological condition in free-living birds
(Thompson et al., 1997). Many studies have linked
mite abundance to factors such as sex (e.g. Blanco et
al., 1999), age (Hamstra and Badyaev, 2008), body
condition (uropygial gland size, weight, fat levels,
muscle scores, etc.) (Galvan and Sanz, 2006; Hartup
et al., 2004; Harper, 1998), migratory habits (e.g.
Moller et al., 2004), or habitat (e.g. Galvan and Sanz,
2006) but no consensus has been reached on
underlying mechanisms. Part of the problem arises
from the general lack of knowledge about feather mite