Manipulating vector transmission reveals local processes in bacterial communities of bats
McKee, C. D.; Webb, C. T.; Kosoy, M. Y.; Bai, Y.; Osikowicz, L. M.; Suu-Ire, R.; Ntiamoa-Baidu, Y.; Cunningham, A. A.; Wood, J. L.; Hayman, D. T.
Show abstract
Infectious diseases result from multiple interactions among microbes and hosts, but community ecology approaches are rarely applied. Manipulation of vector populations provides a unique opportunity to test the importance of vectors in infection cycles while also observing changes in pathogen community diversity and species interactions. Yet for many vector-borne infections in wildlife, a biological vector has not been experimentally verified and few manipulative studies have been performed. Using a captive colony of fruit bats in Ghana, we observed changes in the community of Bartonella bacteria over time after the decline and subsequent reintroduction of bat flies. With reduced transmission, community changes were attributed to ecological drift and potential selection through interspecies competition mediated by host immunity. This work demonstrated that forces maintaining diversity in communities of free-living macroorganisms act in similar ways in communities of symbiotic microorganisms, both within and among hosts. Additionally, this study is the first to experimentally test the role of bat flies as vectors of Bartonella species.
Matching journals
The top 9 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
- Population genetics as a tool to elucidate pathogen reservoirs: Lessons from Pseudogymnoascus destructans, the causative agent of white-nose disease in bats 95%
- Host phylogeny and ecological associations best explain Wolbachia host shifts in scale insects 93%
- Network analysis with either Illumina or MinION reveals that detecting vertebrate species requires metabarcoding of iDNA from a diverse fly community 93%
Similar papers in this journal
- The most remarkable migrants - systematic analysis of the Western European insect flyway at a Pyrenean mountain pass 93%
- Varying phylogenetic signal in susceptibility to four bacterial pathogens across species of Drosophilidae 93%
- Endosymbiotic Rickettsiella causes cytoplasmic incompatibility in a spider host 93%
Similar papers in this journal
- Wolbachia in the spittlebug Prosapia ignipectus: Variable infection frequencies, but no apparent effect on host reproductive isolation 93%
- Latitudinal clines in climate and sleep patterns shape disease outcomes in Drosophila melanogaster infected by Metarhizium anisopliae 92%
- DNA metabarcoding successfully quantifies relative abundances of arthropod taxa in songbird diets: a validation study using camera-recorded diets 92%
Similar papers in this journal
- Effects of parental care on skin microbial community composition in poison frogs 93%
- Physiology and ecology together regulate host and vector importance for Ross River virus and other vector-borne diseases 93%
- Echolocating bats prefer a high risk-high gain foraging strategy to increase prey profitability 93%
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.