Lasiopodomys brandtii (Radde, 1861)

Ming, Ming, Yuan, Shuai, Fu, Heping, Li, Xin, Zhang, Haoting, Liu, Tao, Bu, Fan & Wu, Xiaodong, 2023, Influence of biotic and abiotic factors on flea species population dynamics on Lasiopodomys brandtii, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 21, pp. 185-191 : 187-188

4.1. Investigation on flea presence on L. brandtii

There were 2 families, 5 genera, and 8 species of fleas detected on L. brandtii throughout the study, and the most common species were F. luculenta , N. pleskei orientalis , and A. primiaris mitis . The flea species we collected were all known to be plague vectors in China, except A. marikovskii marikovskii and F. elata taishiri ( Liu and Shi, 2009; Liu and Gu, 2011; Liu, 2015). We found different results from previous reports on both the dominant flea species on L. brandtii in the Hebei Province and the overall composition of the flea community ( Liu et al., 2003; Wang et al., 2006). Flea species are known to be shared across sympatric hosts ( Yensen et al., 1996; Goldberg et al., 2020). Whether flea species are generalists across hosts or specialists on specific host species is situationally-dependent. Specialists will choose unsatisfactory hosts if necessary (Krasnov et al., 2004; Liu and Shi, 2009). Our study area and that in the Hebei Province have different primary carriers of plague in L. brandtii and Meriones unguiculatus , respectively (Kang et al., 2022). Differences in the dominant rodent species and host structures also contribute to the variation in observed flea communities between our study and previous ones ( Li et al., 2001; Kang et al., 2022).

Climatic factors can also affect population dynamics of major hosts and vectors ( Li et al., 2021). Temperature and humidity have been repeatedly shown to have a significant effect on the growth and

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development of flea larvae. Flea species are impacted differently by temperature and humidity (Hu et al., 2001; Krasnov et al., 2001). Our study site was in a typical steppe habitat with a northern temperate continental climate, while that in the Hebei Province was a Bashang grassland with a monsoon climate. These habitats would be expected to contrast in temperature, humidity, extreme weather, and grassland types, and this contributes to differences in both rodent and flea communities. Climate change is impacting temperature and precipitation across the globe, and this will likely have consequences for reproduction, growth, and community structure of rodent and flea species ( Niu et al., 2021; Zhang, 2021b). It would be valuable to clarify how spatial scales affect the role of L. brandtii and environmental factors as drivers of flea population dynamics ( Pontifes et al., 2022).