I have worked on the prevalence of ecto-parasites in livestock-wildlife interface before but couldn't quantify the transmission due to resource and time limitation. In a new study I would like to quantify the transmission of ectoparasites like lice and fleas amongst colony-nesting birds like Asian Openbill, Darter, etc. How do I go about it?
I think you need to define the term transmission.
I am not familiar with the annual cycle of these birds but if they breed at the same time of the year then you should be able to determine what stage of development the lice are dispersing. It will be harder to determine what the fleas are infesting as some may be exclusively nest dwelling. If you have an opportunity to access complete ectoparasite collections from a range of hosts I would suggest using "Quantitative Parasitology" as statistical software (link below).
Nasal and quill mites may also be of interest to you.
http://www.zoologia.hu/qp/qp.html
Hope this helps,
Matt
Dear Phukon,
I am not 100% sure if your desire could be in fact made in the field, not only for the handle and necessity to knowledge for what kind of lice you are talking about (as for the fleas I am not sure if they are common on these birds, but maybe yes and for a particularity of your geographical region). Contrary to the example published that I am sending below , where they made such work but in that case only one species of louse was involved. Your scenario is quite distinct, have in mind:
Asian Openbill, have five species of lice, two more or less more static which live attached to the feathers (ischnocerans) and three others which live running on the skins, they are very agiles and fast (amblycerans). So you might have lot of primary hypothesis like, who does really change more often from/for another host individual, the static or the more dynamic? The answer seems to be easy and obvious, but read the paper below and see how great is the nature, because I would never expect that an 'anopluran' for those primates would move around to easily. The 'ischnoceran' are phylogenetically closer to 'anopluran' than both together are to 'amblyceran', so you may could find interesting results testing it.
Darter, more easy and maybe more suitable as for the model highligthed above, because they usually are parasitised by two species of lice, one from each ischnoceran and amblyceran.
Check this fantastic work on mammal lice, I am sure that your history will be very different on birds: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6785/12/4
Let's talk more about it if you need.
My warmest regards and congratulations for choose ectos of birds to work with.
Michel
:-)
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6785/12/4
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