Weighing the predictors: host traits and coinfecting species both explain variation in parasitism of Rock Ptarmigan
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Testing hypotheses in ecological and evolutionary parasitology can require testing whether host traits or coinfecting parasites explain variation in parasitism by focal species. However, when host traits and coinfecting parasites are considered separately, relations between either and parasitism by focal species can be spurious—a problem that is addressed when both are considered together. We assessed whether abundances of focal parasites related to host age/sex and coinfecting parasites for three endoparasites and nine ectoparasites of Icelandic Rock Ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) collected over 12 yr (2006–2017), and quantified the variation in focal parasitism explained by these predictors. Host traits and coinfecting parasites explained significant variation in abundance of all nine focal parasite species for which models converged, when those models were based on groups of parasites sharing tissue tropism and/or transmission pathways and included year as a random effect. We found a single spurious relation: a host age–sex interaction effect that was removed once concurrent parasitism was considered. When considering focal parasites within groups of coinfecting parasites, we found cases of positive, negative, and lacks of correlations. The amount of variation in focal parasite abundance explained by host traits versus coinfecting parasites depended on the focal parasite and its group. Overall variation explained was both related to the prevalence of the focal parasite, possibly due to underlying parasite aggregation, and similar to variation explained in other models in ecology and evolution. We conclude that host traits and coinfecting parasites often combine to determine infection by focal species. Future studies should also explore the mechanisms underlying parasite–parasite relations and their potential impacts on host demography for this and other study associations, and assess relative effects of host traits and coinfecting parasites on focal parasitism.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".