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Updated: Dec 16, 2025

Author Spotlight: Real-Time Monitoring of Parasite Burden and Host Response
Published on: May 31, 2024
What determines parasite species richness across host species?
Tad Dallas1, Lauren A Holian2, Grant Foster3
1Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
In Focus:
Dáttilo, W., Barrozo-Chávez, N., Lira-Noriega, A., Guevara, R., Villalobos, F., Santiago-Alarcon, D., Neves, F. S., Izzo, T., & Ribeiro, S. P. (2020). Species-level drivers of mammalian ectoparasite faunas. Journal of Animal Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13216. The question of what drives the number of parasite species able to infect a given host species is still a largely open question, despite decades of research. Dáttilo and colleagues examine the potential drivers of ectoparasite species across a large set of host species to explore the taxonomic and trait drivers of host-parasite interactions. Here, we contextualize their findings, explore what is known about parasite species richness, and identify some potential next steps towards answers.
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