Estimating prevalence of avian haemosporidians in natural populations: a comparative study on screening protocols.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Birds harbour an astonishing diversity of haemosporidian parasites. Renewed interest in avian haemosporidians as a model system has placed a greater emphasis on the development of screening protocols to estimate parasite prevalence and diversity. Prevalence estimates are often based on the molecular or blood-smear microscopy techniques. However, variation in diagnostic sensitivity among screening methodologies represents a potential source of bias that may lead to erroneous inference in comparisons of prevalence across studies. Here, we analyzed a suite of blood samples for the presence of parasites using four diagnostic tools and compared method-specific estimates of detection probability to assess the relative performance of screening strategies.

Methods

We scre

SUBMITTER: Ishtiaq F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5340044 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature