Haemosporidian parasite diversity in an under-surveyed Australian avifauna

ABSTRACT

Haemosporidian parasites of birds are geographically widespread, have been detected in a phylogenetically diverse array of hosts, and have been the focus of extensive research due to both their impacts on birds and their similarity to vector-borne diseases of humans. Advances in molecular diagnostic tools have created a greater awareness of the genetic diversity of haemosporidian infections. Yet in spite of their more or less global distribution, comparatively little is known about the haemosporidians affecting birds in Australia. We screened blood from 889 birds (23 species) for haemosporidian blood parasite infections during the 2019 breeding season at Brookfield Conservation Park, South Australia. We examined the genetic (lineage) diversity of haemosporidian infections in this behaviourally and ecologically diverse host assemblage and examined the congruence between parasite and host phylogenies. We identified seven Haemoproteus mitochondrial cytochrome b lineages, five of which were novel. Four birds had simultaneous co-infections by two Haemoproteus lineages each. The Haemoproteus lineages clustered at the host family level. Two Plasmodium lineages were also identified, each of which had been previously detected in different avian host species in Australasia. We did not detect any Leucocytozoon infections in our sample. This study supplies critical baseline data on host–parasite associations in a poorly-surveyed geographic region.

KEYWORDS:

• Avian blood parasites
• Haemoproteus
• Haemosporida
• Mallee
• Plasmodium
• South Australia

Acknowledgements

This research was conducted under the following permits: Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme Authority 3352, University of Nebraska Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee 1822, South Australian Wildlife Ethics Committee 9-2019 and 13-2019, Government of South Australia Department for Environment and Water Research License 365 and Permit to Undertake Scientific Research M26867. We thank M. Conner, B. Dryer, C. Gaughwin, E. Johansson, and L. Vander Meiden for assistance in the field. We thank T. Curtis, K. Davies, M. Gaughwin, T. Peacock, J. Stelmann, and S. Williams for friendship and logistical support. B. Dillard offered feedback on the phylogenetic analysis. C. Cressler, D. Shizuka, and four anonymous reviewers commented on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

All genetic sequences identified in this study are archived in GenBank (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genbank/; accession numbers MW888415–MW888421) and MalAvi (130.235.244.92/Malavi/).

Geolocation

Data was collected at Brookfield Conservation Park, South Australia (−34.35°, 139.50°).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/01584197.2022.2105722

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a crowd-funded grant moderated by the Wildlife Disease Association and Experiment.com. IRH was supported by University of Nebraska funds to D. Shizuka and E. VanWormer. AEJ was supported by National Science Foundation grant IOS-1750606 to D. Shizuka.