The ability of certain animal groups to fly by themselves has always stirred our imaginations. Even in the 15th century Leonardo da Vinci was famously inspired to try to build bird-like ornithopters. However, it was not until the 19th century that the nature of aerodynamic lift was understood, and it is a little more than 100 years since it was successfully applied to achieve flight by an aircr...

Species vary in abundance and heterogeneity of spatial distribution, and the ecological and evolutionary consequences of such variability are poorly known. Evolutionary adaptation to heterogeneously distributed resources may arise from local adaptation with individuals of such locally adapted populations rarely dispersing long distances and hence having small populations and small overall range...

We studied the phylogeny of avian haemosporidian parasites, Haemoproteus and Plasmodium, in a number of African resident and European migratory songbird species sampled during spring and autumn in northern Nigeria. The phylogeny of the parasites was constructed through sequencing part of their mitochondrial cytochrome b gene. We found eight parasite lineages, five Haemoproteus and three Plasmod...

Larval helminths often share intermediate hosts with other individuals of the same or different species. Competition for resources and/or conflicts over transmission routes are likely to influence both the association patterns between species and the life history strategies of each individual. Parasites sharing common intermediate hosts may have evolved ways to avoid or associate with other spe...

Avian species are commonly infected by multiple parasites, however few studies have investigated the environmental determinants of the prevalence of co-infection over a large scale. Here we believe that we report the first, detailed ecological study of the prevalence, diversity and co-infections of four avian blood-borne parasite genera: Plasmodium spp., Haemoproteus spp., Leucocytozoon spp. an...

Malaria, a disease affecting humans and other animals, is caused by a protist of the genus Plasmodium. At the intraerythrocytic stage, the parasite synthesizes a high amount of phospholipids through a bewildering number of pathways. In the human Plasmodium falciparum species, a plant-like pathway that relies on serine decarboxylase and phosphoethanolamine N-methyltransferase activities diverts ...

Haemoparasites prevalence in birds can vary among species, age and sex groups and ecological conditions. To comprehend the host–parasite assemblages, it is important to investigate physiological mechanisms underlying the interactions in wild bird species. Here, using blood smears we investigated how leukocyte profiles in reed warblers (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) and sedge warblers (Acrocephalus s...

Trypanosoma naviformis n. sp. is described from the African olive sunbird Cyanomitra olivacea in Ghana based on the morphology of its hematozoic trypomastigotes and partial sequences of the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene. This parasite belongs to the group of small non-striated avian trypanosomes (< 30 µm in length in average) with the kinetoplast situated close to the posterior end of the...