Assessing the Effects of Climate on Host-Parasite Interactions: A Comparative Study of European Birds and Their Parasites

[Background] Climate change potentially has important effects on distribution, abundance, transmission and virulence of parasites in wild populations of animals. [Methodology/Principal Finding] Here we analyzed paired information on 89 parasite populations for 24 species of bird hosts some years ago and again in 2010 with an average interval of 10 years. The parasite taxa included protozoa, feather parasites, diptera, ticks, mites and fleas. We investigated whether change in abundance and prevalence of parasites was related to change in body condition, reproduction and population size of hosts. We conducted analyses based on the entire dataset, but also on a restricted dataset with intervals between study years being 5–15 years. Parasite abundance increased over time when restricting the analyses to datasets with an interval of 5–15 years, with no significant effect of changes in temperature at the time of breeding among study sites. Changes in host body condition and clutch size were related to change in temperature between first and second study year. In addition, changes in clutch size, brood size and body condition of hosts were correlated with change in abundance of parasites. Finally, changes in population size of hosts were not significantly related to changes in abundance of parasites or their prevalence. [Conclusions/Significance] Climate change is associated with a general increase in parasite abundance. Variation in laying date depended on locality and was associated with latitude while body condition of hosts was associated with a change in temperature. Because clutch size, brood size and body condition were associated with change in parasitism, these results suggest that parasites, perhaps mediated through the indirect effects of temperature, may affect fecundity and condition of their hosts. The conclusions were particularly in accordance with predictions when the restricted dataset with intervals of 5–15 years was used, suggesting that short intervals may bias findings.The Academy of Finland is acknowledged for a grant to TE (project 8119367) and EK (project 250709). PLP was supported by a research grant (TE_291/2010) offered by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Science. T. Szép received funding from OTKA K69068 and JT from OTKA 75618. JMP was supported by a JAE grant from Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. SM-JM, FdL-AM, JF, JJS and FV were respectively supported by projects CGL2009-09439, CGL2012-36665, CGL2009- 11445, CGL2010-19233-C03-01 and CGL2008-00562 by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and FEDER and project EVITAR by the Spanish Ministry of Health. FV was also supported by the European Regional Development Fund. MACT was funded by a predoctoral FPU grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education (AP20043713). PM was supported by grant from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education (project 2P04F07030), and the Foundation for Polish Science

Consensus tree from the Bayesian analysis

Majority rule consensus tree returned from the Bayesian analysis ran in MrBayes 3.2.2

Phylogenetic tree data

Phylogenetic tree data. Columns: (1) taxon = phylogenetic tree tip labels; (2) flw.categ = flower dwelling habit, either a flower-dweller (FLW) or a non-flower dweller (NOFLW); (3) biog_reg = region of collection, either collected in Australia or in Europe plus Malaysia; (4) sample.size = reflectance data sample sizes

Phylogenetic tree

Phylogenetic tree. Majority rule consensus tree from the Bayesian analysis ultrametricised and pruned. See file 'tree FULL.nex' for the original tree

Data from: Correlated evolution between colouration and ambush site in predators with visual prey lures

The evolution of a visual signal will be affected by signaller and receiver behaviour, and by the physical properties of the environment where the signal is displayed. Crab spiders are typical sit-and-wait predators found in diverse ambush sites, such as tree bark, foliage and flowers. Some of the flower-dweller species present a UV+-white visual lure that makes them conspicuous and attractive to their prey. We hypothesised that UV+-white colouration was associated with the evolution of a flower-dwelling habit. In addition, following up on results from a previous study we tested whether the UV+-white colouration evolved predominantly in flower-dwelling species occurring in Australia. We measured the reflectance of 1149 specimens from 66 species collected in Australia and Europe, reconstructed a crab spider phylogeny, and applied phylogenetic comparative methods to test our hypotheses. We found that the flower-dwelling habit evolved independently multiple times, and that this trait was correlated with the evolution of the UV+-white colouration. However, outside Australia non-flower-dwelling crab spiders also express a UV+-white colouration. Therefore, UV+-white reflectance is probably a recurring adaptation of some flower-dwellers for attracting pollinators, although it may have other functions in non-flower-dwellers, such as camouflage

Bayesian phylogenetic analysis

Results from the Bayesian phylogenetic analysis ran in MrBayes 3.2.2. Four independent searches with three heated chains and one cold chain each. Default MrBayes’ priors. Searches initiated with random trees. Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations (MCMC) were run for 10 million iterations and trees sampled every 10,000 iterations

Reflectance data

Specimen reflectance data. The first column shows wavelength (nm) values. Each one of the following columns represents the average reflectance value (%) of five measurements of one specimen. Reflectance values have been smoothed (R function 'smooth.spline' with argument 'spar'=0.7), and negative values converted to zero. Column names indicate taxon names. More detail can be found in 'specimen data.csv' file

Sampled trees from the Bayesian analysis

Randomly sampled phylogenetic trees from the posterior distribution returned from the Bayesian phylogenetic inference ran in MrBayes 3.2.2. Sampled 100 trees from each one of four independent searches in MrBayes, in a total of 400 trees. Trees have been ultrametricised and pruned

Disentangling migratory routes and wintering grounds of Iberian near-threatened European Rollers Coracias garrulus.

Long-distance migrants are suffering drastic declines in the last decades. Causes beneath this problem are complex due to the wide spatial and temporal scale involved. We aim to reveal migratory routes, stopover areas, wintering grounds, and migratory strategies for the most southwestern populations of the near-threatened European Roller Coracias garrulus in order to identify conservation key areas for the non-breeding stage of this species. To this end, we used tracking data from seven satellite transmitters fitted to birds breeding in different populations throughout the Iberian Peninsula and four geolocators fitted to individuals in a southeastern Iberian population. Precise satellite data were used to describe daily activity patterns and speed in relation to the main regions crossed during the migration. Individuals from the most southwestern Iberian populations made a detour towards the Atlantic African coast whereas those from northeastern populations followed a straight north-to-south route. We identified important stopover areas in the Sahel belt, mainly in the surroundings of the Lake Chad, and wintering grounds on southwestern Africa farther west than previously reported for the species. Concerning the migratory strategy, satellite data revealed: 1) a mainly nocturnal flying activity, 2) that migration speed depended on the type of crossed habitat, with higher average speed while crossing the desert; and 3) that the migration was slower and lasted longer in autumn than in spring. The studied populations showed weak migratory connectivity, suggesting the confluence of birds from a wide range of breeding grounds in a restricted wintering area. Therefore, we suggest to target on defining precisely key areas for this species and identifying specific threats in them in order to develop an appropriate global conservation programme for the European Roller

Migratory routes, stopover sites and wintering grounds of southwestern European Rollers.

<p>Tracks recorded by satellite tranmitters (left) and geolocators (right) between breeding sites in the Iberian Peninsula and the wintering grounds (blue dots and blue areas, respectively) in southwestern Africa. Red and green colours correspond, respectively, to autumn and spring migrations. Dots represent stopovers, and their sizes are relative to time spent (the longer the period, the bigger the spot). Dotted lines indicate uncertainty provoked by the equinoxes. Locations assigned before and after dotted lines are partially based on longitudinal data and should be considered as approximations. Geolocators data for latitudes close to the equator have high associated deviations and thus should be interpreted carefully <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0115615#pone.0115615-Lisovski1" target="_blank">[45]</a>. Wintering grounds for satellite-tracked birds were located by calculating average coordinates, whilst for geolocators they were calculated by kernel density estimation for 50, 70 and 90% of the locations.</p