DOI: 10.5061/dryad.mcvdnck8z
title: Between- and within-population drivers of haemosporidian prevalence and diversity in American robins (Turdus migratorius)

description: Avian haemosporidians are a diverse group of parasites that infect birds
 worldwide and have been a major focus of research for decades. Yet, few
 studies have identified the drivers of infection at the intraspecific host
 level. We aimed to study the drivers of prevalence and diversity of
 haemosporidian parasites infecting a common North American songbird
 species, the American Robin (Turdus migratorius), which breeds across most
 of the continent. We found little seasonal variation in haemosporidian
 prevalence in robins, although we detected a significantly positive
 relationship between robin breeding latitude and co-infection with
 different haemosporidian parasite lineages. Additionally, robins infected
 with Plasmodium had a substantially better body condition than those of
 uninfected robins, which could be due to migratory culling. We detected 31
 haemosporidian lineages among the robins we sampled, of which eight were
 novel. When matched against known haemosporidian lineages, our results
 suggest that robins harbor a higher diversity of haemosporidian parasites
 than previously known. The results of this study suggest that comparisons
 of common, widespread bird species such as robins across their range could
 help unveil novel aspects of the haemosporidian-host relationship and how
 such a relationship may change under current and future rapid
 environmental change.
description: # Between- and within-population drivers of haemosporidian prevalence and
 diversity in American robins (*Turdus migratorius*) Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.mcvdnck8z](10.5061/dryad.mcvdnck8z) ## Description of the
 data and file structure Data includes American robin banding data,
 haemosporidian infection status data, and geographic assignment data using
 feather hydrogen isotopes. ### Files and variables #### File:
 Jahn\_et\_al\_2025\_JAV.csv **Description:** American robin capture,
 haemosporidian, and isotopic data ##### Variables * Band: individual bird
 ID (categorical) * Band.Date: date of capture in MM/DD/YYYY format * year:
 capture year (numeric) * month: capture month (numeric) * day: capture day
 of the month (numeric) * Season: derived season from capture date
 (categorical) * State: categorical US state of capture (Indiana, Alaska) *
 long: longitude of capture site (numeric) * lat: latitude of capture site
 (numeric) * Age: bird age class (after hatch year, hatch year;
 categorical) * Sex: bird sex (male, female, unknown; categorical) *
 Breeding: binary if the bird was in breeding condition (categorical) *
 Mass: scaled body mass (original data in grams) * Wing: scaled wing chord
 length (original data in mm) * resid: residuals from a sex-specific
 regression of mass and wing chord * Breeding.origin: breeding origin of
 birds (categorical) * Lat_max_GSP: estimated maximum breeding latitude
 (numeric) * Lat_Range: estimated range of breeding latitude (numeric) *
 sample_type: blood sample type (whole blood, red blood cells; categorical)
 * Infection: haemosporidian infection type (single, double, triple;
 categorical) * Diag: binary haemosporidian positivity * Diag_P: binary
 Plasmodium positivity * Diag_H: binary Haemoproteus positivity * Diag_L:
 binary Leucocytozoon positivity * Coinf: binary coinfection with at least
 two lineages * Lineage.1.Name: name of first haemosporidian lineage *
 Lineage.2.Name: name of second haemosporidian lineage *
 Lineage.3.Name: name of third haemosporidian lineage