Abstract
Understanding the interactions between parasites, hosts, and their shared environment is central to ecology. Variation in infestation prevalence may be the result of varying environmental and population characteristics; however, variations in parasitism may also depend on individual characteristics that influence both the exposure and susceptibility to parasites. Using 12 years of data from a population of wild eastern chipmunks relying on pulsed food resources, we investigated the determinants of bot fly parasitism at both the population and individual level. We assessed the relationship between infestation prevalence and weather conditions, population size and food abundance. Then, we assessed the relationship between infestation intensity and chipmunk behavior, sex, age, body mass and food abundance. Precipitation, temperature and population size were positively related to infestation prevalence, while beech masts were negatively related to infestation prevalence, highlighting the importance of local environmental conditions on hosts and parasites. We also found that the influence of activity and exploration on infestation intensity varied according to sex in adults. More active and faster exploring males had more parasites compared to females, suggesting that reproductive behaviors may influence parasite exposure. For juveniles, infestation intensity was greater when juveniles emerged in the spring as opposed to fall, possibly because spring emergence is synchronized with the peak of bot fly eggs in the environment, low food availability and longer activity period. Our results suggest that the environmental, population and host characteristics that are advantageous for reproduction and resource acquisition may come at the cost of increasing parasitism.
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Acknowledgements
We thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. We are grateful for all graduate students and field assistants who have contributed to the Chipmunk Project since 2005 and the Réserve Naturelle des Montagnes-Vertes (Québec, Canada) for allowing us to conduct this research within their boundaries.
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This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery grants of DR, JS, DG, PB and by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec—Nature et technologies (FRQNT) team grant to DG, DR, and PB. CP was supported by FRQNT and NSERC scholarships.
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CP wrote the manuscript with support from DG, DR, PB and JS; CP performed analyses with the help of DG, PB and DR; DG, PB and JS supervised the project.
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All applicable institutional and/or national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed. Animal handling protocols have been approved by the Ministère des Ressources Naturelles et de la Faune du Québec (no. 2018-04-20-103-05-S-F) and the Canadian Council on Animal Care (no. DG2011–01-Université de Sherbrooke).
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Paquette, C., Garant, D., Savage, J. et al. Individual and environmental determinants of Cuterebra bot fly parasitism in the eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus). Oecologia 193, 359–370 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04685-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-020-04685-x