Macroparasites in Antarctic penguins

• Main Authors: Diaz, Julia I., Fusaro, Bruno, Vidal, Virginia, Gonzalez-Acuna, Daniel, Schneider Costa, Erli, Dewar, Meagan, Gray, Rachael, Power , Michelle, Miller, Gary, Blyton, Michaela D. (R18360), Vanstreels, Ralph, Barbosa, Andres
• Other Authors: Klimpel, Sven (Editor), Kuhn, Thomas (Editor), Mehlhorn, Heinz (Editor), Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment (Host institution)
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland, Springer 2017
• Subjects: XXXXXX - Unknown; parasites; penguins; Antarctica; Antarctic; Renaud; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46343-8_9; http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uwsau/reader.action?ppg=193&docID=4806809&tm=1489372404765; http://handle.westernsydney.edu.au:8081/1959.7/uws:39034

Parasites are the majority of species on Earth (Windsor 1998). The total number of parasite species is likely to be huge, because practically all free-living metazoan species harbor at least one parasite species and almost every individual of every species is parasitized by at least one parasite during its life cycle (Poulin and Morand 2004). The number of parasite species has been estimated as a range from 30 to 71% of the living species (Price 1980; de Meeus and Renaud 2002). Therefore, parasites can be considered a selective pressure affecting different aspects of the host life which can modulate host populations (Morand and Deter 2009). Moveover, parasite diversity provides insights into the history and biogeography of other organisms, into the structure of ecosystems, and into the processes behind the diversification of life (Poulin and Morand 2004).