Ectoparasite Diversity and Infection Burden on Two Sympatric Bat Species, <i>Myotis lucifugus</i> and <i>M. septentrionalis</i> (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Parasites are an abundant and diverse group of organisms that are often excluded from biodiversity surveys, limiting our understanding of host–parasite relationships and parasite diversity. Parasites are dependent on their hosts for survival and parasite populations are at risk if their host populations decline. The aim of our study was to quantify and compare the ectoparasite communities of two sympatric Atlantic Canadian bat species, Myotis lucifugus and M. septentrionalis . Ectoparasites were collected from bats captured for research throughout Atlantic Canada between 1999 and 2017 during the active season (May–October). The prevalence and mean intensity of infection were calculated for each identified ectoparasite species and generalized linear mixed models were used to assess host differences in infection by the two most abundant ectoparasites. Both bat species hosted ectoparasite communities dominated by the mite Spinturnix americanus and the flea Myodopsylla insignis with other ectoparasites being rarely encountered. Despite being the most common ectoparasites of both bat species, our results suggest that infections of these ectoparasites vary between them with M. insignis prevalence being greater on M. lucifugus and S. americanus prevalence being greater on M. septentrionalis . We suggest these differences in infection burden are related to the social and roosting behaviors of these hosts and the life history of the ectoparasites. Monitoring parasites concurrently with focal species is important for capturing this aspect of biodiversity and for understanding how host–parasite dynamics may be disrupted if hosts undergo drastic demographic changes.
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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 | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 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".