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Relationships Of Haemosporidian Parasites To Populations Of Their Avian Hosts In Eastern North America, Vincenzo Alexander Ellis

Dissertations

Avian Haemosporida are common, vector-transmitted blood parasites of birds throughout the world. During my dissertation research, I explored how multiple host species respond immunologically to natural infections in the wild (Chapter 1) and to experimental infections in the laboratory (Chapter 2). Despite their tractability as a model host-parasite system and a burgeoning literature on avian Haemosporida, little is known about how their populations interact across large areas (hereafter “regions”). I present data from parasite surveys of birds across eastern North America suggesting that continental parasite populations track host populations across the region, but also that the host breadth of a …