blood parasites in owls with conservation implications for the spotted owl (strix occidentalis)血液寄生虫在猫头鹰保护斑点猫头鹰的影响(思occidentalis).pdfVIP

Blood Parasites in Owls with Conservation Implications for the Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis) 1 1,2 3 4 5 Heather D. Ishak *, John P. Dumbacher , Nancy L. Anderson , John J. Keane , Gediminas Valkiu¯ nas , 6 7 1 Susan M. Haig , Lisa A. Tell , Ravinder N. M. Sehgal 1 Department of Biology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, California, United States of America, 2 Department of Ornithology and Mammalogy, California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, California, United States of America, 3 Lindsay Wildlife Museum, Walnut Creek, California, United States of America, 4 Sierra Nevada Research Center, USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Research Station, Davis, California, United States of America, 5 Institute of Ecology, Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania, 6 USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, Corvallis, Oregon, United States of America, 7 Department of Medicine and Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California Davis, Davis, California, United States of America Abstract The three subspecies of Spotted Owl (Northern, Strix occidentalis caurina; California, S. o. occidentalis; and Mexican, S. o. lucida) are all threatened by habitat loss and range expansion of the Barred Owl (S. varia). An unaddressed threat is whether Barred Owls could be a source of novel strains of disease such as avian malaria (Plasmodium spp.) or other blood parasites potentially harmful for Spotted Owls. Although Barred Owls commonly harbor Plasmodium infections, these parasites have not been documented in the Spotted Owl. We screened 111 Spotted Owls, 44 Barred Owls, and 387 owls of nine other species for haemosporidian