Parasites

The nutritional status of animals affected by:

-is related to the quality and quantity of food intake

-is affected by the efficiency of its digestion by the animal (Murray, keith and Cary, 1998).

Energy from food available for growth, reproduction and storage = food metabolized = food used for body maintenance. This can be affected by any parasites the animals may harbor which can affect the animals' metabolism.

Some parasites are capable of appropriating significant amounts of nutrients from the host, and thus reducing the net energy available to the animals, while others have no negative affects at all (209).

Parasites which appropriate large amounts of energy from animals can have effects on their body condition or their reproduction, but these effects may be negated if there is an abundant food supply available.

Malnutrition ? lowered resistance to parasitic infection because of compromised immune systems.

Food shortages ? higher rates of parasitism ? higher nutritional demands on the animals (Murray, Keith and Cary, 1998, 209).

Natural vertebrate populations may be adversely affected by a synergistic relationship between a reduced food supply and parasitic infections. This possibility was explored in the snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) by Murray, Keith and Cary (1998).

The researchers hypothesized that:

-nutrition and parasitism would act synergistically on hare production,

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ts distributed to three of six experimental areas. Parasite-reduction was administered throughout the year to half of the hares by an anthelminthic drug, iver-mectin, 03 mg/kg injected subcutaneously in propylene glycol. Parasite-normal animals were sham-injected with an equal volume of propylene glycol. Survival and movement of subsamples of hares in each area were monitored, and if numbers were uneven, new hares were added to the appropriate treatment group (Murray, Keith and Cary, 1998, 211). Hares were live-trapped for 7 to 10 days bimonthly in each study area concurrently, and trapped animals were recorded for sex, age and body mass. Pregnancy was determined by embryo palpation, and male reproductive state was determined by testis descent. Food supplements were given between November and May in each year of the study, and dispersed throughout the study area by an electric seed-spreader. Hares not residing in study area periodically euthanized to determine parasite burdens of untreated controls. 80-90 percent of study residents euthanized at end of study. Carcasses of radio-monitored hares retrieved throughout study. Bone marrow fat measured from samples dried at 70oC for 24 hrs. and expressed as rel

Category: Medical - P