Longitudinal impacts of habitat fragmentation on <i>Bartonella</i> and hemotropic <i>Mycoplasma</i> dynamics in vampire bats.

ABSTRACT: Habitat fragmentation can have negative impacts on wildlife including increased risk of infectious disease. To assess spatiotemporal changes in pathogen dynamics in vampire bats (Desmodus rotundus) in response to habitat fragmentation, we used general linear mixed models to investigate the influence of site, year, and tree cover on the prevalence of Bartonella and hemotropic Mycoplasma (hemoplasma) in bats in one large and one small forest fragment in northern Belize across seven years. Bartonella was marginally more prevalent in later years, while year and site differences in hemoplasma infections were driven by a peak in prevalence in the third year of the study in the small fragment. Bartonella prevalence increased with forest loss, but only in the lar

SUBMITTER: Lock LR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12330531 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature