On the Effects of Blood Parasites in Wild Birds

Sammanfattning: Coccidian and haemoatozoan parasites are commonly occurring endo-parasites in wild birds and prevalence can vary among species and populations. In addition to prevalence studies, parasites are often used to investigate effects on life history traits. Findings from these studies are not unambiguous, as correlations with many life history traits are absent, although common findings include negative effects on survival and body condition. In this thesis, coccidian and blood parasite prevalence and their effect on survival were investigated using a PCR approach in eleven popu-lations of great snipes (Gallinago media) and in two populations of tree sparrows (Passer montanus). In great snipes and tree sparrows we investigated the parasites Plasmodium/Haemoproteus (P/H) and Leucocytozoon and in tree sparrows also Atoxoplasma.In Great snipes the overall adult prevalence was 29.9%. At the main study site, Gåvålia, Norway, a decrease in P/H prevalence with age was found and infected birds had a lower mean age. Two not mutually exclusive alternative explanations are that infected young birds may have a higher mortality and/or that individual birds can purge the infection. There was a variation in prevalence among the sample years in Gåvålia and a difference among populations. Finding fluctuations among year demonstrates the need of long term data to study parasite prevalence variation.  In tree sparrows the Haematozoan prevalence was 5.9% in adults and 56.5% in Atoxoplasma. By using recapture models to estimate apparent survival rates with the software MARK 4.2, it was suggested that parasite infections may have an impact on the apparent survival rate in one of the populations. Since condition and breeding performance appeared unaffected, it can be hypothesised that this pattern may indicate that chronic infections generally do not appear to impair birds, although subclinical infections may occasionally develop into disease with fatal outcome.