Linking Behavior, Co-infection Patterns, and Viral Infection Risk With the Whole Gastrointestinal Helminth Community Structure in Mastomys natalensis.

ABSTRACT: Infection probability, load, and community structure of helminths varies strongly between and within animal populations. This can be ascribed to environmental stochasticity or due to individual characteristics of the host such as their age or sex. Other, but understudied, factors are the hosts' behavior and co-infection patterns. In this study, we used the multimammate mouse (Mastomys natalensis) as a model system to investigate how the hosts' sex, age, exploration behavior, and viral infection history affects their infection risk, parasitic load, and community structure of gastrointestinal helminths. We hypothesized that the hosts' exploration behavior would play a key role in the risk for infection by different gastrointestinal helminths, whereby highly explorative individuals wou

SUBMITTER: Vanden Broecke B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8415832 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature