DOI: 10.5061/dryad.k98sf7mgn
title: Data from: Birds in arid regions have depauperate louse communities: Climate change implications?

description: Environmental factors such as temperature and humidity influence the
 distribution of free-living organisms. As climates change, the
 distributions of these organisms change along with their associated
 parasites, mutualists and commensals. Less studied, however, is the
 possibility that environmental conditions may directly influence the
 distribution of these symbionts even if the hosts are able to persist in
 altered environments. Here, we investigate the diversity of parasitic lice
 (Insecta: Phthiraptera) on birds in arid Utah compared to the humid
 Bahamas. We quantified the parasite loads of 500 birds. We found that the
 prevalence, abundance and richness of lice was considerably lower among
 birds in Utah, compared to the Bahamas, despite sampling greater host
 taxonomic richness in Utah. Our data suggest that as climates change,
 birds in arid regions will have less diverse louse communities over time,
 potentially relieving birds of some of the cost of controlling these
 ectoparasites. Conversely, birds in more humid regions will see an
 increase in louse diversity, which may require them to invest more time
 and energy in anti-parasite defense. Additional research with other
 ectoparasites of birds and mammals across different environmental
 conditions is needed to more fully understand how climate change may
 reshape parasite communities, and how these changes could influence their
 hosts.
description: This dataset is a CSV file that lists the 500 individual birds
 (Passeriformes) that were captured in San Salvador, Bahamas or Summit
 County, Utah, USA. The data includes the mass of each bird and the number
 of lice removed from each bird via a dust-ruffling procedure described in
 the associated paper.
description: # Data from: Birds in arid regions have depauperate louse communities:
 Climate change implications?
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.k98sf7mgn](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.k98sf7mgn) ## Description of the data and file structure This dataset is a csv fille that lists the 500 individual birds (Passeriformes) that were captured in San Salvador, Bahamas (2019) or in Summit County, Utah, USA (2021).  The data includes the mass of each bird and the number of lice removed from each bird via a dust-ruffling procedure described in the associated paper. ### Files and variables #### File: Supporting\_data\_EE.csv **Description:**  ##### Variables * Included in the restricted data set?: "Y" in this column indicates that data from this individual was included in the restricted data set, which focused analyses on the seven species of birds in each location with at least 12 individuals per species.  "N" indicates that the individual was not included in the restricted data set   * DATE: This indicates the year that each bird was examined. * State/Region: This indicates where each bird was surveyed - either San Salvador, Bahamas or Summit County, Utah, USA * ID: This indicates the field identification number for each bird. * Host species: Genus and species of each bird. * Mass (g): This indicates the body mass measured in grams for each bird * Total lice: The total number of lice recovered from each bird. * Lice present?: "1" indicates that one or more lice were recovered from the bird during the dust-ruffling proceedure; "0" indicates that no lice were recovered from the bird. * Missing data are indicated by "." ## Code/software These data were curated in Excel and saved as a .csv file.  They can be opened with any software that can open comma-separated values. ## Access information Other publicly accessible locations of the data: * none Data was derived from the following sources: * original field work