Livestock abundance predicts vampire bat demography, immune profiles and bacterial infection risk.

ABSTRACT: Human activities create novel food resources that can alter wildlife-pathogen interactions. If resources amplify or dampen, pathogen transmission probably depends on both host ecology and pathogen biology, but studies that measure responses to provisioning across both scales are rare. We tested these relationships with a 4-year study of 369 common vampire bats across 10 sites in Peru and Belize that differ in the abundance of livestock, an important anthropogenic food source. We quantified innate and adaptive immunity from bats and assessed infection with two common bacteria. We predicted that abundant livestock could reduce starvation and foraging effort, allowing for greater investments in immunity. Bats from high-livestock sites had higher microbicidal activity and proportions of neutro

SUBMITTER: Becker DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5882995 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature