Wounded but unstressed: Moose tolerate injurious flies in the boreal forest.

ABSTRACT: Moose (Alces alces) in boreal habitats feed and rest where they are exposed to Dipteran flies and the parasites they carry. We collected 31,905 flies during the summer from 12 habituated moose on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. Moose flies, Haematobosca alcis (Snow), Diptera: Muscidae-a species that completes its entire life cycle on or around moose-accounted for 91% of flies collected; the reminder of the flies collected included mosquitoes (Culicidae), black flies (Simuliidae), and deer flies (Tabanidae). Flies impose physiological costs for moose, e.g., vectors for parasites such as Legworm (Onchocerca spp.) which causes sores on the hind legs of moose. We found that the number of sores present on the hind legs of moose is positively correlated with body fat, which sug

SUBMITTER: Benedict BM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11520747 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature