Continental-scale patterns of pathogen prevalence: a case study on the corncrake

Fourcade, Yoan, Keišs, Oskars, Richardson, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7226-9074 and Secondi, Jean (2014) Continental-scale patterns of pathogen prevalence: a case study on the corncrake. Evolutionary Applications, 7 (9). 1043–1055. ISSN 1752-4563

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Abstract

Pathogen infections can represent a substantial threat to wild populations, especially those already limited in size. To determine how much variation in the pathogens observed among fragmented populations is caused by ecological factors, one needs to examine systems where host genetic diversity is consistent among the populations, thus controlling for any potentially confounding genetic effects. Here, we report geographic variation in haemosporidian infection among European populations of corncrake. This species now occurs in fragmented populations, but there is little genetic structure and equally high levels of genetic diversity among these populations. We observed a longitudinal gradient of prevalence from western to Eastern Europe negatively correlated with national agricultural yield, but positively correlated with corncrake census population sizes when only the most widespread lineage is considered. This likely reveals a possible impact of local agriculture intensity, which reduced host population densities in Western Europe and, potentially, insect vector abundance, thus reducing the transmission of pathogens. We conclude that in the corncrake system, where metapopulation dynamics resulted in variations in local census population sizes, but not in the genetic impoverishment of these populations, anthropogenic activity has led to a reduction in host populations and pathogen prevalence.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2014 The Authors. Evolutionary Applications published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	parasite transmission,approximate bayesian computation,haemosporidian parasites,effective population size,avian malaria,agriculture intensity,sdg 3 - good health and well-being ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/good_health_and_well_being
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	31 Jul 2015 13:32
Last Modified:	18 May 2023 00:21
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/54009
DOI:	10.1111/eva.12192

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