Merling-de-Chapa/tRicho: To get sick or not to get sick - Trichomonas infections in two Accipiter species from Germany

This Zenodo/GitHub repository provides the data and R code behind the paper To get sick or not to get sick - Trichomonas infections in two Accipiter species from Germany by Merling de Chapa et al.

ABSTRACT: Trichomonosis caused by the flagellate Trichomonas gallinae is one of the most important avian diseases worldwide. The parasite is localised in the oesophageal area of its host and mainly infects pigeon and dove species. During the last decade a host expansion to passerine birds occurred, making the disease a potential threat for passerine predators as naïve host species. Here, we investigated the effect of the parasite on two Accipiter species in Germany which show a comparable lifestyle but differ in prey species, the Northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) mainly hunting pigeons and the Eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) mainly feeding on passerines. We genetically identified the parasite strains using the Fe-Hydrogenase gene as marker locus and compared the incidence of parasite presence and clinical signs of trichomonosis between the two Accipiter species. In total, we identified 14 strains, with nine strains novel to science. There was a higher strain diversity and prevalence of Trichomonas spp. in goshawks than sparrowhawks (42.4% vs. 21.2%) whereas sparrowhawks more often displayed clinical signs of trichomonosis than goshawks (37.1% vs. 6.1%). Even though sparrowhawks were mainly infected with the finch epidemic strain and genetic data indicated some variation between isolates, no correlation with virulence could be detected. All in all, goshawks seem to be adapted to Trichomonas infections, whereas to sparrowhawks this is a novel disease with more severe consequences, from individual morbidity to a higher risk of population decline caused by trichomonosis.