Livestock abundance predicts vampire bat demography, immune profiles and bacterial infection risk
- Becker, D. J. [ Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA ] [ Center for the Ecology of Infectious Disease, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA ] [ Montana State University: Microbiology & Cell Biology ]
- Czirjak, Gabor A. [ Department of Wildlife Diseases, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany ]
- Volokhov, Dmitriy V. [ Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research, U.S. Food & Drug Administration, Rockville, MD, USA ]
- Bentz, Alexandra B. [ Department of Poultry Science, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA ] [ Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA ]
- Carrera, Jorge E. [ Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de Piura, Piura, Perú ] [ Programa de Conservación de Murciélagos de Perú, Piura, Perú ]
- Camus, Melinda S. [ Department of Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA ]
- Navara, Kristen J. [ Department of Poultry Science, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA ]
- Chizhikov, Vladimir E. [ Center for Biologics Evaluation & Research, U.S. Food & Drug Administration, Rockville, MD, USA ]
- Fenton, Brock M. [ Department of Biology, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada ]
- Simmons, Nancy B. [ Department of Mammalogy, Division of Vertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA ]
- Recuenco, Sergio E. [ Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, Lima, Perú ]
- Gilbert, Amy T. [ National Wildlife Research Center, United States Department of Agriculture, Fort Collins, CO, USA ]
- Altizer, Sonia [ Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA ] [ Center for the Ecology of Infectious Disease, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA ]
- Streicker, Daniel G. [ Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA ] [ Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK ] [ MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, Glasgow, UK ]
Human activities create novel food resources that can alter wildlife-pathogen interactions. If resources amplify or dampen, pathogen transmission probably depends on both host ecology and pathogen biology, but studies that measure responses to provisioning across both scales are rare. We tested these relationships with a 4-year study of 369 common vampire bats across 10 sites in Peru and Belize that differ in the abundance of livestock, an important anthropogenic food source. We quantified innate and adaptive immunity from bats and assessed infection with two common bacteria. We predicted that abundant livestock could reduce starvation and foraging effort, allowing for greater investments in immunity. Bats from high-livestock sites had higher microbicidal activity and proportions of neutrophils but lower immunoglobulin G and proportions of lymphocytes, suggesting more investment in innate relative to adaptive immunity and either greater chronic stress or pathogen exposure. This relationship was most pronounced in reproductive bats, which were also more common in high-livestock sites, suggesting feedbacks between demographic correlates of provisioning and immunity. Infection with both Bartonella and haemoplasmas were correlated with similar immune profiles, and both pathogens tended to be less prevalent in high-livestock sites, although effects were weaker for haemoplasmas. These differing responses to provisioning might therefore reflect distinct transmission processes. Predicting how provisioning alters host-pathogen interactions requires considering how both within-host processes and transmission modes respond to resource shifts. This article is part of the theme issue 'Anthropogenic resource subsidies and host-parasite dynamics in wildlife'.