Microparasite species richness in rodents is higher at lower latitudes and is associated with reduced litter size

• Published in: Oikos 2011-12, Vol.120 (12), p.1889-1896
• Main Authors: Bordes, Frédéric, Guégan, Jean François, Morand, Serge
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Animal and plant ecology; Animal populations; Animal reproduction; Animal, plant and microbial ecology; Bacteria; Biological and medical sciences; Biological taxonomies; Ecology; Ecology, environment; Ecosystems; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Habitats; Infections; Latitude; Life Sciences; Litter size; Mammalia; Parasite hosts; Parasites; Rodents; Species; Vertebrates: general zoology, morphology, phylogeny, systematics, cytogenetics, geographical distribution; Viruses
• ISSN: 0030-1299; 1600-0706
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-0706.2011.19314.x

Parasite species loads are expected to be higher in the tropics and higher parasite species richness to have cumulative effects on host physiology or demography. Despite being regularly assumed or predicted, empirical evidence on species-latitude patterns is scarce or contradictory and studies on the impacts of concomitant infections have mainly been done at host intra-specific level. Broad generalizations are then very hard, if not spurious. By focusing on rodent species and their non-eukaryotic microparasites (i.e. viruses and bacteria), we investigated, using a comparative approach, microparasite species richness across rodent species according to the latitude where they occur. We also explored the links between rodents' reproductive traits, latitude and microparasite species richness. We find for the first time in rodents that virus species richness increases towards tropical latitudes, and that rodent litter size seems to decrease when microparasite species richness increases independently from the latitude. These results support the hypotheses that rodent species in the tropics effectively harbour higher parasite species loads, at least in terms of species richness for viruses, and that parasite species richness influences rodent life-history traits. Although some other factors, such as seasonality, were not taken into account due the lack of data, our study stresses the idea that chronic microparasite infections may have detrimental effects on their rodent host reservoirs, notably by affecting litter size.