A snapshot of climate drivers and temporal variation of Ixodes ovatus abundance from a giant panda living in the wild

Xueyang Fan; Rui Ma; Changjuan Yue; Jiabin Liu; Bisong Yue; Wanjing Yang; Yunli Li; Jiang Gu; James E Ayala; Daniel E Bunker; Xia Yan; Dunwu Qi; Xiaoyan Su; Lin Li; Dongsheng Zhang; Hongwen Zhang; Zhisong Yang; Rong Hou; Songrui Liu

doi:10.1016/j.ijppaw.2023.02.005

A snapshot of climate drivers and temporal variation of Ixodes ovatus abundance from a giant panda living in the wild

Int J Parasitol Parasites Wildl. 2023 Feb 24:20:162-169. doi: 10.1016/j.ijppaw.2023.02.005. eCollection 2023 Apr.

Authors

Xueyang Fan¹, Rui Ma¹, Changjuan Yue¹, Jiabin Liu¹, Bisong Yue², Wanjing Yang¹, Yunli Li¹, Jiang Gu¹, James E Ayala¹, Daniel E Bunker³, Xia Yan¹, Dunwu Qi¹, Xiaoyan Su¹, Lin Li¹, Dongsheng Zhang¹, Hongwen Zhang¹, Zhisong Yang⁴, Rong Hou¹, Songrui Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ Sichuan Key Laboratory of Conservation Biology for Endangered Wildlife, Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, 1375 Panda Road, Chenghua District, Sichuan Province, 610081, China.
² Sichuan Key Laboratory of Conservation Biology on Endangered Wildlife, College of Life Sciences, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610064, Sichuan, China.
³ Department of Biological Sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, 07102, USA.
⁴ Sichuan Academy of Giant Panda, Chengdu, 610081, China.

Abstract

Ticks and tick-borne diseases have negative impacts on the health of wild animals including endangered and vulnerable species. The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca), a vulnerable and iconic flagship species, is threatened by tick infestation as well. Not only can ticks cause anemia and immunosuppression in the giant panda, but also bacterial and viral diseases. However, previous studies regarding tick infestation on giant pandas were limited in scope as case reports from sick or dead animals. In this study, an investigation focusing on the tick infestation of a reintroduced giant panda at the Daxiangling Reintroduction Base in Sichuan, China was conducted. Ticks were routinely collected and identified from the ears of the giant panda from March to September in 2021. A linear model was used to test the correlation between tick abundance and climate factors. All ticks were identified as Ixodes ovatus. Tick abundance was significantly different among months. Results from the linear model showed temperature positively correlated to tick abundance, while air pressure had a negative correlation with tick abundance. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first reported investigation of tick species and abundance on a healthy giant panda living in the natural environment, and provides important information for the conservation of giant pandas and other species sharing the same habitat.

Keywords: 16s rRNA, 16S ribosomal RNA; AIC, Akaike information criterion; ANOVA, Analysis of variance; Ailuropoda melanoleuca; BLAST, Basic local alignment search tool; CI, Confidence interval; COI, Coxidase subunit I; HSD, Honest significant differences; Ixodes ovatus; NCBI, National center for biotechnology Information; Reintroduction; Tick; VIF, Variance inflation factors.