Endoparasite prevalence in kangaroo rats may be influenced by urban development

Urban development can fragment and degrade wildlife habitat. In urban areas, animals may occur in close proximity to each other and experience high levels of disturbance. These disturbances may influence prevalence of... [ view full abstract ]

Urban development can fragment and degrade wildlife habitat. In urban areas, animals may occur in close proximity to each other and experience high levels of disturbance. These disturbances may influence prevalence of endoparasites along urban-wild land gradients. We investigated the influence of urbanization on endoparasite prevalence in Merriam’s kangaroo rat (Dipodomys merriami). We predicted that kangaroo rats living in urbanized sites would have higher levels of endoparasite prevalence than kangaroo rats in wild land sites. We live trapped kangaroo rats at 10 sites in and around Las Cruces, NM: 5 urban and 5 wild land sites, from June to November 2013, June to September 2014 and May to October 2015, and collected fecal samples from 201 kangaroo rats, 109 from urban sites and 92 from wild land sites. We used fecal flotation to detect endoparasite infection. We detected 2 parasitic nematodes; Pterygodermatites dipodomis had a higher prevalence in urban sites and Mastophorus dipodomis had a higher prevalence in wild land sites. Further, Heteromoxyuris, Eimeria and Giardia were detected. These results indicate that urban disturbances may influence the prevalence of some kangaroo rat endoparasites. Increased availability of anthropogenic resources, alterations to plant cover or intermediate host abundance, individual kangaroo rat behavior or genetic differences may be factors in that influence endoparasite prevalence.