| Literature DB >> 12000685 |
Rahul R Marathe1, Shantanu S Goel, Sachin P Ranade, Maithili M Jog, Milind G Watve.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Importance of parasites in ecological and evolutionary interactions is being increasingly recognized. However, ecological data on parasites of important host species is still scanty. We analyze the patterns seen in the faecal parasites of tigers in the Tadoba National Park, India, and speculate on the factors and processes shaping the parasite community and the possible implications for tiger ecology.Entities:
Mesh:
Year: 2002 PMID: 12000685 PMCID: PMC111199 DOI: 10.1186/1472-6785-2-6
Source DB: PubMed Journal: BMC Ecol ISSN: 1472-6785 Impact factor: 2.964
The prevalence, propagule densities and other statistics for the genera and families of parasites found. Since identification to the species level from propagules was often not possible, we define OTUs based upon propagule morphological differences. Two strategies are applied for this, the conservative one ignores smaller differences, the liberal makes use of subtle characters for differentiation.
| Conservative | Liberal | prevalence | abundance | mean | var | var/mean | |
| 1 | 3 | 0.528 | 1400.588 | 740.311 | 3238786 | 4374.897 | |
| Hookworm | 1 | 1 | 0.014 | 0.422 | 0.006 | 0.002 | 0.422 |
| 3 | 3 | 0.014 | 3119.471 | 44.563 | 63212.43 | 1418.468 | |
| 1 | 1 | 0.028 | 2.625 | 0.075 | 0.205 | 2.737 | |
| 1 | 4 | 0.228 | 22.268 | 5.089 | 714.486 | 140.372 | |
| 1 | 1 | 0.085 | 22.267 | 1.908 | 210.045 | 110.047 | |
| 1 | 1 | 0.014 | 0.095 | 0.001 | 0.0001 | 0.095 | |
| 1 | 1 | 0.028 | 1.238 | 0.035 | 0.081 | 2.290 | |
| Unidentified | 3 | 6 | 0.057 | 1.225 | 0.070 | 0.166 | 2.382 |
Figure 1Across all species of parasites the variance in propagule densities increased with the square of the mean densities as indicated by a slope close to two of a double log plot.
Brief natural history of tiger parasites. Most of the information is generic and comes from related hosts or captive carnivores. Reliable and specific information on species in tigers and their effects on the host is unavailable at present.
| Paragonimidae | These are ovoid with a spiny tegument and are parasitic in the lungs (lung flukes). | The eggs are laid in the cyst in which the worms live and escape in the respiratory system. Animals swallow the cysts along with the mucus which pass in the faeces. The miracidium escapes and penetrates into an amphibian snail. After escaping the snail, the cercariae swim about in the water and on meeting a suitable crab or crayfish, penetrate into it. The final host becomes infected by eating infected crustacea. | |
| occurs in the small intestine of man, cat, pig and fish eating mammals. Large tapeworms, The scolex has instead of suckers, narrow, deep, weakly muscular grooves called 'bothria'. | A typical life cycle includes free living | ||
| Taeniidae | Large tapeworms, Gravid proglottids are longer than they are wide, Rostellum with a double row of small and large hooks | Species found in wild carnivores, commonly have herbivores as intermediate hosts. Some of the species form hydatid cysts in the secondary host. Hydatids are frequently found in herbivore viscera of the study area. | |
| Hookworm | Ancylostomatidae | These are hookworms with a well developed buccal capsule with chitinous cutting plates. | Direct. No intermediate hosts involved. Infective larvae enter through water or by active penetration of the skin. |
| Ascarididae | Relatively large worms with three well developed lips. There is no buccal capsule or pharynx. Cervical alae give their anterior ends an arrow like appearance. For this reason they are sometimes called arrow worms or arrow headed worms. | The infective stage is the egg containing second stage larva. They grow in the intestine of the host. | |
| Lungworm | Filaroididae | Parasites of respiratory system of mammals | Direct. No intermediate hosts involved. |
| Capillariidae | The worms are closely related to | The lifecycle may be direct or indirect. The eggs are unsegmented when laid and develop into larval stages which then infect the definitive host if the life cycle is indirect. |
Figure 2Cluster analysis of the parasite composition of all samples. If the parasite composition of individual tigers is fairly consistent, samples coming from different individuals should form different clusters. The clustering was robust since three different clustering strategies gave very similar clusters (data not shown). The larger clusters that would presumably reflect repeated sampling of resident individuals are numbered. One identified mail (M1) and one identified female (F1) that were sampled repeatedly are indicated. Both of them belong to one cluster each.
Figure 3The number of clusters reduced with the distance discontinuously to give two distinct plateaus. We suspect the second plateau to appropriately represent individual tigers since the distance matches with that seen in known individual tigers and the number of clusters is close to the plausible number of tigers in the study area.
Figure 4The areas over which samples from individual clusters were collected were marked using the principle of minimum convex polygon. The sizes of the resultant ranges and their overlaps are comparable to those of individual tigers obtained by radiotelemetry (Karanth and Sunquist 2000).
Parasite propaule densities in samples (raw data).
| sample no. | total eggs | No. of species | Hookworm | Toxocara | Lungworm | Unidentified | |||||
| 1 | 45.00 | 1 | 45.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 2 | 285.63 | 2 | 285.21 | 0.42 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 3 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 4 | 661.46 | 2 | 656.93 | 0.00 | 4.53 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 5 | 0.60 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.60 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 6 | 1.29 | 3 | 0.16 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.97 | 0.16 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 7 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 8 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 9 | 5575.00 | 2 | 5500.00 | 0.00 | 75.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 10 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 11 | 51.60 | 2 | 50.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1.60 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 12 | 35.33 | 3 | 35.14 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.00 |
| 13 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 14 | 53.15 | 3 | 50.56 | 0.00 | 0.39 | 0.00 | 2.19 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 15 | 14.50 | 1 | 14.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 16 | 10.95 | 2 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 8.57 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.38 | 0.00 |
| 17 | 2870.31 | 1 | 2870.31 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 18 | 138.38 | 2 | 135.38 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.00 |
| 19 | 169.23 | 1 | 169.23 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 20 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 21 | 218.36 | 1 | 218.36 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 22 | 11.46 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 11.46 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 23 | 669.74 | 1 | 669.74 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 24 | 1768.11 | 1 | 1768.11 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 25 | 12049.16 | 3 | 12048.19 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.84 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.12 |
| 26 | 0.54 | 2 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.43 | 0.11 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 27 | 939.97 | 2 | 937.97 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 28 | 3451.01 | 1 | 3451.01 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 29 | 1.68 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1.68 |
| 30 | 4.50 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 4.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 31 | 3.00 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 32 | 2.75 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.75 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 33 | 3095.29 | 1 | 3095.29 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 34 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 35 | 3168.64 | 1 | 3165.64 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 36 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 37 | 1406.95 | 1 | 1406.95 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 38 | 566.03 | 2 | 562.78 | 0.00 | 3.25 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 39 | 245.96 | 2 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 151.36 | 0.00 | 94.60 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 40 | 204.54 | 2 | 0.10 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 204.34 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.10 |
| 41 | 9.50 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 9.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 42 | 12.00 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 12.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 43 | 7.00 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 7.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 44 | 20.50 | 2 | 11.75 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 8.75 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 45 | 914.52 | 1 | 914.52 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 46 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 47 | 1832.13 | 3 | 1688.34 | 0.00 | 22.70 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 121.09 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 48 | 506.50 | 1 | 506.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 49 | 3869.11 | 1 | 3869.11 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 50 | 4748.46 | 2 | 3869.11 | 0.00 | 879.34 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 51 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 52 | 15.50 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 15.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 53 | 64.87 | 1 | 64.87 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 54 | 2.50 | 1 | 2.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 55 | 905.34 | 2 | 879.34 | 0.00 | 26.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 56 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 57 | 3.50 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 58 | 14.50 | 1 | 14.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 59 | 3.25 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 3.25 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 60 | 880.84 | 2 | 879.34 | 0.00 | 1.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 61 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 62 | 1969.73 | 1 | 1969.73 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 63 | 1922.83 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1922.83 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 64 | 8.00 | 1 | 8.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 65 | 7.60 | 1 | 7.60 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 66 | 3.50 | 2 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 1.50 | 2.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
| 67 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| 68 | 0.50 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.50 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| 69 | 0.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | |
| 70 | 2.00 | 1 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 2.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Figures indicate estimated density of propagules per gram.