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Spatial variation in helminth community structure in the red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa L.): effects of definitive host density

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2004

C. CALVETE ,
J. A. BLANCO-AGUIAR ,
E. VIRGÓS ,
S. CABEZAS-DÍAZ  and
R. VILLAFUERTE
C. CALVETE
Affiliation:
Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), P.O. Box 535, E-13080 Ciudad Real, Spain
J. A. BLANCO-AGUIAR
Affiliation:
Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), P.O. Box 535, E-13080 Ciudad Real, Spain
E. VIRGÓS
Affiliation:
Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), P.O. Box 535, E-13080 Ciudad Real, Spain Present address: Departamento de Matemáticas y Física Aplicadas y Ciencias de la Naturaleza, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos I. C/ Tulipan s/n E-28933 Madrid, Spain.
S. CABEZAS-DÍAZ
Affiliation:
Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), P.O. Box 535, E-13080 Ciudad Real, Spain
R. VILLAFUERTE
Affiliation:
Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos (IREC, CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), P.O. Box 535, E-13080 Ciudad Real, Spain
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Abstract

Parasite community ecology has recently focused on understanding the forces structuring these communities. There are few surveys, however, designed to study the spatial repeatability and predictability of parasite communities at the local scale in one host. The purpose of our study was to address the relationship between infracommunity and component community richness, and to describe spatial variations on the local scale, of helminth parasite communities in an avian host, the red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa). We sampled 235 wild partridges from 8 separate localities, with different partridge population densities, in the Ciudad Real and Toledo provinces of central Spain, and we determined their overall and intestinal helminth species. We found that habitat variables (mean temperature and land use) were not significantly associated with any component community. The partridge population abundance index was directly correlated with the prevalence and mean intensity of infection but not with component community species richness. There was a curvilinear relationship between infracommunity and component community species richness, as well as negative interspecific associations, for the helminth species assemblage parasitizing the intestine. A nestedness/anti-nestedness pattern, considered as part of a continuum, was associated with prevalence, mean intensity and partridge population abundance index, but not with component community richness. Increases in the partridge population abundance index and the prevalence and mean intensity of infection were associated with increases in helminth community nestedness. Although negative interactions between helminth species could not be ruled out as forces structuring helminth communities, our results suggest that parasite community structure in the red-legged partridge was primarily determined by the extrinsic influence of parasite habitat heterogeneity and its amplification of the differing probabilities of colonization of parasite species.

Keywords

avian hosthelminth communitiesinterspecific associationsnestednessspecies richness
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 129 , Issue 1 , July 2004 , pp. 101 - 113
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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