The impact of multiple infections on wild animal hosts: a review

Abstract

Field parasitological studies consistently demonstrate the reality of polyparasitism in natural systems. However, only recently, studies from ecological and evolutionary fields have emphasised a broad spectrum of potential multiple infections-related impacts. The main goal of our review is to reunify the different approaches on the impacts of polyparasitism, not only from laboratory or human medical studies but also from field or theoretical studies. We put forward that ecological and epidemiological determinants to explain the level of polyparasitism, which regularly affects not only host body condition, survival or reproduction but also host metabolism, genetics or immune investment. Despite inherent limitations of all these studies, multiple infections should be considered more systematically in wildlife to better appreciate the importance of parasite diversity in wildlife, cumulative effects of parasitism on the ecology and evolution of their hosts.

• Wildlife
• polyparasitism
• multiparasitism
• coinfections
• parasite diversity
• life-history traits

Acknowledgements

This study is supported by the French ANR Biodiversity ANR 07 BDIV 012, project CERoPath, ‘Community Ecology of Rodents and their Pathogens in a changing environment’ (http://www.ceropath.org/). We thank two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions.