Age-dependent relationships among diet, body condition, and < i > Echinococcus multilocularis < /i > infection in urban coyotes

by Scott Sugden, Deanna K. Steckler, Dana Sanderson, Bill Abercrombie, Duncan Abercrombie, M. Alexis Seguin, Kyra Ford, Colleen Cassady St. Clair Urban coyotes (Canis latrans) in North America increasingly exhibit a high prevalence ofEchinococcus multilocularis, a cestode of recent and rising public health concern that uses rodents as intermediate hosts and canids as definitive hosts. However, little is known about the factors that drive the high urban prevalence of this parasite. We hypothesized that the diet of urban coyotes may contribute to their higherE.multilocularis infection prevalence via either (a) greater exposure to the parasite from increased rodent consumption or (b) increased susceptibility to infection due to the negative health effects of consuming anthropogenic food. We tested these hypotheses by comparing the presence and intensity ofE.multilocularis infection to physiological data (age, sex, body condition, and spleen mass), short-term diet (stomach contents), and long-term diet ( δ13C and δ15N stable isotopes) in 112 coyote carcasses collected for reasons other than this study from Edmonton, Alberta and the surrounding area. Overall, the best predictor of infection status in this population was young age, where the likelihood of infection decreased with age in rural coyotes but not urban ones. Neither short- nor long-term measures of diet could predict infection across our entire sample, but we found support for our initial hypotheses in young, urban c...
Source: PLoS One - Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Source Type: research