almost all forest bird seeds Avian malaria is endemic in Hawaii, posing a growing threat to the popular honeymoon destination’s wildlife, according to a new study published in Nature Communications.
The study reveals a potential explanation for why the disease occurs almost everywhere mosquitoes live in the Hawaiian Islands.
Scientists from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and the University of California analyzed blood samples from more than 4,000 birds at 64 locations across the state, a press release said.
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They then conducted feeding trials in which they fed infected birds to mosquitoes and tracked whether the insects spread the disease at different temperatures.
The research team found that both native and “introduced” species of forest birds can infect mosquitoes when insects eat them. Even if a bird carries only a small amount of the parasite, it can transmit disease for months or years.
“Avian malaria has caused devastating damage.” Native Hawaiian forest birdsAnd this study shows why this disease is so difficult to contain,” said Christa M. Seidl, who conducted the research as part of her doctoral studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in a statement.
“When so many bird species are able to sustain infection silently, options for protecting native birds are limited, making mosquito control not only helpful but essential,” she added.
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In many ecosystems, diseases continue to circulate even if only a handful of animal species spread the disease, but this study found that avian malaria appears to be more widespread among many bird species.
The mosquito, which is not native to Hawaii, could increase the risk of extinction for forest birds, the National Park Service says. The Hawaiian bird akikiki, which lives on Kauai, is currently extinct in the wild Because of my illness.
According to the National Audubon Society, avian malaria belongs to the same family as the protozoa that causes malaria in humans, but strains unique to birds are not contagious to humans.
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Even though avian malaria is not fatal to birds, it can shorten a bird’s telomeres. elements of dna It affects lifespan, says the above source.
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In addition to affecting infected birds, the altered DNA can be passed on to the chicks, resulting in a new generation of birds with shorter lifespans.
The researchers pointed out several caveats. along with studying. First, the researchers primarily used lab-controlled canaries to examine different parasite levels of infection, which may not be perfectly consistent for all wild bird species.
They also faced technical hurdles in measuring exactly how much malaria-carrying saliva mosquitoes produce at different temperatures, which the researchers’ model largely explains, the study said.
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Finally, researchers cannot realistically track everything; bitten by a mosquito In the wild, they used infection patterns as an indirect method of estimating insect feeding preferences. If a species is infected more often, it suggests that mosquito bites are occurring more frequently.
