Prevalence of Haemosporidians in birds of Northern Michigan.

Abstract

In this study, the prevalence of Haemosporidians in birds of Northern Michigan was investigated with an emphasis on the parasite Plasmodium in passerine birds. Birds caught and banded by mist-netters were sampled for blood and recorded by species, net number, sex, age, and swab number. The total prevalence of blood parasites in the samples was 23.8%. Birds caught at the CEMA banding site had the highest prevalence of malarial infection, and the birds of the NOMA banding site had the lowest. Mann-Whitney Tests resulted in two-tailed p-values of 0.001, .0762, and 0.003 for comparisons of prevalence between NOMA and CEMA, CEMA and SOMA, and NOMA and SOMA, respectively. Kruskal-Wallis Tests regarding bird age, location and families resulted in p-values of 0.259, 0.004, and 0.009, respectively. Tests for sex showed no significant differences between prevalence of infection in male and female hosts.