Infestação e relação parasito-hospedeiro entre carrapatos e aves na fazenda Bananeiras, ESEC de Murici, AL

Abstract

In the Atlantic Forest there is a highly devastated biogeographic region, the Centro de Endemismo Pernambuco (CEP), which is considered a hotspot within the Atlantic forest hotspot. The CEP has a very high number of taxa of endemic and threatened birds, which makes it important to understand the rates of tick infestation in birds, which can influence survival rates, choice of partners and reproductive success compared to non-parasitized individuals, and the relationships between ectoparasites and hosts in the locality. Fazenda Bananeiras – ESEC de Murici – Alagoas, was the place chosen to develop this study because it is the largest fragment of the area and for its importance for bird conservation worldwide. Six expeditions were carried out with bird capture, four of which were going to the field in the dry season between 2019 and 2020, and two in the field in the three months prior to the beginning of the rainy season in 2021. The birds were captured with mist nets, inspected for ticks (ACARI: IXODIDA) and marked with metal washers. Later in the laboratory, ticks were identified by stereomicroscope, following specific identification keys. Of the 59 birds captured and inspected, 40 of them were infested by ticks, forming the prevalence infestation rates of 67.7%, Mean intensity of 7.63 and Mean abundance of 5.26. Although a single host accounted for 68 ticks, the total ticks in birds reached 305 identified specimens. All captured were in immature stages, most of them larvae and a minority nymphs. All the identified specimens belonged to the genus Amblyomma, with a single specimen classified at species level, a nymph of Amblyomma longirostre. The analyses for infestation rates revealed that among the birds the prevalence was higher in birds with omnivorous and endemic feeding habits, while for Intensity and Abundance the threatened were more infested in both indexes. There was also a significant difference found when compared to the abundance infestation index and the foraging stratum; however, the statistical test did not identify which region exactly had the highest infestation. In relation to tick infestation sites in birds, a higher incidence was observed in the head, with nymphs preferably in the throat and nape, and larvae around the eyes. In this work, the first record of parasitism by Amblyomma sp. for five species of birds and the extension of the geographic distribution for the CEP of the parasitism relationship for four subspecies of birds by the same genus. In this way, the present work contributes, as an initial study, to inform which genus of tick parasitized the birds at Fazenda Bananeiras - ESEC de Murici.