Linking community assembly and structure across scales in a wild mouse parasite community.

ABSTRACT: Understanding what processes drive community structure is fundamental to ecology. Many wild animals are simultaneously infected by multiple parasite species, so host-parasite communities can be valuable tools for investigating connections between community structures at multiple scales, as each host can be considered a replicate parasite community. Like free-living communities, within-host-parasite communities are hierarchical; ecological interactions between hosts and parasites can occur at multiple scales (e.g., host community, host population, parasite community within the host), therefore, both extrinsic and intrinsic processes can determine parasite community structure. We combine analyses of community structure and assembly at both the host population and individual scales using exte

SUBMITTER: Rynkiewicz EC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6953566 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature