Can parasites drive population cycles in mountain hares?

ABSTRACT: Understanding the drivers of population fluctuations is a central goal of ecology. Although well-established theory suggests that parasites can drive cyclic population fluctuations in their hosts, field evidence is lacking. Theory predicts that a parasite that loosely aggregates in the host population and has stronger impact on host fecundity than survival should induce cycling. The helminth Trichostrongylus retortaeformis in the UK's only native lagomorph, the mountain hare, has exactly these properties, and the hares exhibit strong population fluctuations. Here we use a host-parasite model parametrized using the available empirical data to test this superficial concordance between theory and observation. In fact, through an innovative combination of sensitivity and stability analyses, we

SUBMITTER: Townsend SE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2660982 | biostudies-literature | 2009 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature