CRB: Interactive Effects of Parasitism and Food Supplementation in a Natural Avian Population

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9806765 Dobson Understanding the role that infectious diseases play in natural populations is one of the key questions in population ecology. This study will examine the impact that 'malaria-like' protozoan parasites have on the reproduction and survival of mountain white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys oriantha). The study takes advantage of more than two decades of work on the population biology and behavior of white-crowned sparrows in the Sierra Nevada. Nearly all of the individuals in the breeding population at Tioga Pass are marked with individually numbered leg-bands and their previous breeding history is known. This project will extend our present understanding of the population's demography by examining how blood parasites affect the observed birth and survival rates for the population. This will allow determination of the role that these infectious diseases play in determining changes in population numbers between years. Antiparasitic drugs will then be used to treat both infected and uninfected individuals and to examine the resultant changes in survival and fecundity. Host nutrition plays a crucial role in determining how an individual responds to infection with blood parasites. A second major component of the study uses a series of supplemental feeding experiments to examine the interaction between nutrition and the host's ability to survive a challenge by a blood parasite. Thus the work will provide important insights into the interaction between nutrition, infectious diseases and host population biology in natural populations.