My presentation at Oikos Finland in University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, in 11.2.2015.

1. Tracking year-to-year changes in
intestinal nematode communities
Tuomas Aivelo,
University of Helsinki
(@aivelo)
11.2.2015
Oikos Finland
of rufous mouse lemurs

2. Why longitudinal surveys?

Host individual is a dynamic habitat

How parasite communities change?

Understanding interactions in
parasite communities
→ virulence, prevalence etc.
→ resistance, tolerance

Succession in parasite communities
→ host developmet

3. Long-term studies are quite
common, but...

Focus often on single
species / taxons

Focus on component
populations (= one parasite
species in a host community)

Infrapopulations (= one
parasite species in a single
host) rarely studied Photo: St. Kilda Soay Sheep Project / Arpat Ozgul

4. Research questions

Is there consistent
succession in
infracommunities?

How component and
infracommunities relate to
each other?

5. Studying infracommunities

Mark-recapture of
rufous mouse lemurs
(Microcebus rufus)

3 years in
Ranomafana National
Park, in southeastern
Madagascar

634 samples on 78
individual mouse
lemurs

6. ...but it's not easy

n thousand species of
nematodes which look the
same

No adult specimens

Identification of operational
taxonomic units

Nematode barcoding routinely
with 18S gene

Pyrosequencing to isolate and
sequence whole samples (1-
1000 larvae

7. 2011
vs.
2012
Putative species 1
and 2 quite stable
Highest diversity
when the prevalence
is the lowest
Putative
species 1
Strongyloides
Putative
species 2
Rhabditidae
Putative
species 3
Strongylida
Putative
species 4
Chromadorea
Putative
species 5
Enterobius
Putative Panagrellus
Component
communities

8. First catches rarely
contain nematodes
Rare putative
species ephemeral
There's also turnover in
common putative species
Infracommunities

9. In nutshell

Component community quite stable, whereas
pervasive variation in infracommunity

Role of transmission routes?

Hibernation and parasites?

10. What next?
Looking at the microbiome interaction between
macrobiota and microbiota