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How general are generalist parasites? The small mammal part of the Lyme disease transmission cycle in two ecosystems in northern Europe

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Abstract

The pathogens causing Lyme disease are all vectored by generalist tick species found on a wide range of vertebrates, but spatial and annual variation in host use has rarely been quantified. We here compare the load of Ixodes ricinus (the vector) on small mammals and investigate the infection prevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. (the pathogen) involved in the enzootic transmission cycle of Lyme disease in two contrasting ecosystems in Norway from 2014 to 2016. The most common larval tick host in the eastern region was the bank vole, while the common shrew dominated in the western region of Norway. However, the wood mouse and the bank vole had consistently higher larval tick loads than the common shrew in both ecosystems. Hence, the evidence indicated that species are differently suitable as hosts, regardless of their abundances. The pathogen infection prevalence was similar among small mammal species, but markedly higher in the region with larger small mammal populations and higher tick loads, while the seasonal and annual variation was less marked. Our study indicated that the generalist I. ricinus shows consistent patterns of load on species of small vertebrate hosts, while B. burgdorferi s.l. (B. afzelii) was a true generalist. The similar roles of host species across regions suggest that disease dynamics can be predicted from host community composition, but predicting the role of host community composition for disease dynamics requires a detailed understanding of the different species population limitations under global change.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Jeroen van der Kooij for aiding in identification of small mammal species. We are grateful to the Research Council of Norway for funding the #EcoTick Project (254469) and to the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, UiO, for providing a scholarship to fund a sabbatical for AM of the University of Antwerp. We are grateful to an anonymous referee and the editor for comments improving our manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biosciences, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis (CEES), University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1066 Blindern, 0316, Oslo, Norway

    Atle Mysterud, Vetle Malmer Stigum, Harald Linløkken, Anders Herland & Hildegunn Viljugrein

  2. Evolutionary Ecology Group, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610, Wilrijk, Belgium

    Atle Mysterud

  3. Norwegian Veterinary Institute, P.O. Box 750 Sentrum, 0106, Oslo, Norway

    Hildegunn Viljugrein

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  1. Atle Mysterud
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  2. Vetle Malmer Stigum
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  3. Harald Linløkken
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  4. Anders Herland
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  5. Hildegunn Viljugrein
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Contributions

AM conceived and designed the study. VMS, AH and HL did the field work. VMS did the DNA labwork. HL and AH did the tick counting. HV and AM did the statistical analyses and made the figures. AM drafted the paper. All authors gave their comments to the ms and final approval before submission.

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Correspondence to Atle Mysterud.

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Permissions to capture rodents and shrews were given by the Norwegian Environment Agency (reference 2013/11201) and hence conform to the Norwegian laws and regulations.

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Data will be deposited in Dryad upon acceptance.

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Communicated by Roland A. Brandl.

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Mysterud, A., Stigum, V.M., Linløkken, H. et al. How general are generalist parasites? The small mammal part of the Lyme disease transmission cycle in two ecosystems in northern Europe. Oecologia 190, 115–126 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-019-04411-2

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