Habitat heterogeneity drives the host-diversity-begets-parasite-diversity relationship: evidence from experimental and field studies.

ABSTRACT: Despite a century of research into the factors that generate and maintain biodiversity, we know remarkably little about the drivers of parasite diversity. To identify the mechanisms governing parasite diversity, we combined surveys of 8100 amphibian hosts with an outdoor experiment that tested theory developed for free-living species. Our analyses revealed that parasite diversity increased consistently with host diversity due to habitat (i.e. host) heterogeneity, with secondary contributions from parasite colonisation and host abundance. Results of the experiment, in which host diversity was manipulated while parasite colonisation and host abundance were fixed, further reinforced this conclusion. Finally, the coefficient of host diversity on parasite diversity increased with spatial grain,

SUBMITTER: Johnson PT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4902763 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature