| are hippoboscid flies a major mode of transmission of feather mites? | feather mites (astigmata) are distributed around the world, living on the feathers of birds, but their mechanisms for transmission among hosts are not fully understood. there is anecdotal evidence of feather mites attached to louseflies (diptera: hippoboscidae), suggesting that feather mites may use these flies as a mode of phoretic transmission among birds. two bird-lousefly associations (alpine swift apus melba-crataerina melbae and feral pigeon columba livia-pseudolynchia canariensis) were in ... | 2001 | 11695394 |
| what makes a host profitable? parasites balance host nutritive resources against immunity. | numerous host qualities can modulate parasite fitness, and among these, host nutritive resources and immunity are of prime importance. indeed, parasite fitness increases with the amount of nutritive resources extracted from the host body and decreases with host immune response. to maximize fitness, parasites have therefore to balance these two host components. yet, because host nutritive resources and immunity both increase with host body condition, it is unclear whether parasites perform better ... | 2008 | 18171155 |
| sources of variability in aggregation and sex ratios of crataerina melbae (diptera: hippoboscidae) among adult colonial alpine swifts. | aggregation of crataerina melbae flies on breeding adult alpine swifts (apus melba) was low when compared with other host-parasite systems and varied with sampling date, year, and sex of the flies. generalized linear models were performed to ascertain which factors, extrinsic and/or intrinsic to the host, explained variability in the number of louse flies present on a single host, i.e., abundance. overall abundance was unrelated to any host characteristic but varied slightly among years. abundan ... | 2000 | 11128513 |
| high host specificity of crataerina melbae (diptera: hippoboscidae) in a mixed colony of birds. | we looked for louse flies (diptera, hippoboscidae) in a mixed colony of 9 species of birds from 1991 to 1997. alpine swifts (apus melba) exhibited an unusually high prevalence (85.9%) by crataerina melbae (rondani, 1879). no birds from the other 8 breeding bird species were parasitized by this louse fly. we suggest that the number of potential swiftlike hosts as well as the size of hosts may account for the differential prevalence of the louse flies within the colony. | 1998 | 9488370 |