Preliminary studies suggest parasite communities follow patterns of succession synonymous to free-living systems, with colonization patterns contributing to long term maintenance of parasite community diversity. However, few studies have examined succession dynamics in long-lived mammals. Here, we sampled 40 African buffalo calves every two months for three years. We used high-throughput amplicon sequencing to quantify relative abundance of blood-borne parasites within each sample. We then utilized novel statistical framework, that accounts for the compositional nature of our data as well as repeated measures study design, to model how presence and relative abundance of each parasite changes with age. We used our statistical models to calculate age of first infection and rank in developed communities for each parasite.
Results/Conclusions
We found evidence supporting the competition-colonization tradeoff theory as certain species were consistently the first species to infect calves (colonizers) but species that infected calves at least secondarily obtained highest relative abundances when communities reached equilibrium (competitors). Our findings suggest succession dynamics may contribute to co-existence of hemo-parasite species in African buffalo.