Age-specific haemosporidian infection dynamics and survival in Seychelles warblers

Hammers, Martijn, Komdeur, Jan, Kingma, Sjouke, Hutchings, Kimberly, Fairfield, Eleanor, Gilroy, Danielle and Richardson, David ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7226-9074 (2016) Age-specific haemosporidian infection dynamics and survival in Seychelles warblers. Scientific Reports, 6. ISSN 2045-2322

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Abstract

Parasites may severely impact the fitness and life-history of their hosts. After infection, surviving individuals may suppress the growth of the parasite, or completely clear the infection and develop immunity. Consequently, parasite prevalence is predicted to decline with age. Among elderly individuals, immunosenescence may lead to a late-life increase in infection prevalence. We used a 21-year longitudinal dataset from one population of individually-marked Seychelles warblers (Acrocephalus sechellensis) to investigate age-dependent prevalence of the GRW1 strain of the intracellular protozoan blood parasite Haemoproteus nucleocondensus and whether infections with this parasite affect age-dependent survival. We analyzed 2454 samples from 1431 individuals and found that H. nucleocondensus infections could rarely be detected in nestlings. Prevalence increased strongly among fledglings and peaked among older first year birds. Prevalence was high among younger adults and declined steeply until ca 4 years of age, after which it was stable. Contrary to expectations, H. nucleocondensus prevalence did not increase among elderly individuals and we found no evidence that annual survival was lower in individuals suffering from an infection. Our results suggest that individuals clear or suppress infections and acquire immunity against future infections, and provide no evidence for immunosenescence nor an impact of chronic infections on survival.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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:	22 Jun 2016 16:00
Last Modified:	12 May 2023 00:13
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/59470
DOI:	10.1038/srep29720

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