title: Winter temperature affects the prevalence of ticks in an Arctic seabird.
abstract: The Arctic is rapidly warming and host-parasite relationships may be modified by such environmental changes. Here, I showed that the average winter temperature in Svalbard, Arctic Norway, explained almost 90% of the average prevalence of ticks in an Arctic seabird, the Brünnich's guillemot Uria lomvia. An increase of 1°C in the average winter temperature at the nesting colony site was associated with a 5% increase in the number of birds infected by these ectoparasites in the subsequent breeding season. Guillemots were generally infested by only a few ticks (≤5) and I found no direct effect of tick presence on their body condition and breeding success. However, the strong effect of average winter temperature described here clearly indicates that tick-seabird relationships in the Arctic may be strongly affected by ongoing climate warming.
authors.affiliation: Norwegian Polar Institute, Fram Centre, Tromsø, Norway. descamps@npolar.no
authors.forename: Sébastien
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Descamps
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001110:Arctic Regions; D001947:Breeding; D046091:Charadriiformes / Q000469:parasitology*; D057232:Global Warming / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009664:Norway; D015995:Prevalence; D012621:Seasons; D013696:Temperature; D013987:Ticks / Q000502:physiology*