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Malarial parasites decrease reproductive success: an experimental study in a passerine bird

  • Population Ecology
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Abstract

Malarial parasites are supposed to have strong negative fitness consequences for their hosts, but relatively little evidence supports this claim due to the difficulty of experimentally testing this. We experimentally reduced levels of infection with the blood parasite Haemoproteus prognei in its host the house martin Delichon urbica, by randomly treating adults with primaquine or a control treatment. Treated birds had significantly fewer parasites than controls. The primaquine treatment increased clutch size by 18%; hatching was 39% higher and fledging 42% higher. There were no effects of treatment on quality of offspring, measured in terms of tarsus length, body mass, haematocrit or T-cell-mediated immune response. These findings demonstrate that malarial parasites can have dramatic effects on clutch size and other demographic variables, potentially influencing the evolution of clutch size, but also the population dynamics of heavily infected populations of birds.

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Acknowledgements

M. Reviriego kindly helped with field work. This study was supported by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology BOS 2003-01713 for F. L. and A. M. R., and A. M. R. was supported by a predoctoral grant from Junta de Extremadura (FIC01A043).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biología Animal, Universidad de Extremadura, 06071, Badajoz, Spain

    Alfonso Marzal, Florentino de Lope & Carlos Navarro

  2. Laboratoire de Parasitologie Evolutive, CNRS UMR 7103, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Bât. A, 7ème étage, 7 quai St. Bernard, Case 237, 75252, Paris Cedex 05, France

    Anders Pape Møller

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  1. Alfonso Marzal
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  2. Florentino de Lope
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  3. Carlos Navarro
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  4. Anders Pape Møller
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Correspondence to Alfonso Marzal.

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Marzal, A., Lope, F.d., Navarro, C. et al. Malarial parasites decrease reproductive success: an experimental study in a passerine bird. Oecologia 142, 541–545 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-004-1757-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-004-1757-2

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