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Estimating prevalence of avian haemosporidians in natural populations: a comparative study on screening protocols

Overview of attention for article published in Parasites & Vectors, March 2017
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (84th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (92nd percentile)

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1 blog
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9 X users

Citations

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39 Dimensions

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100 Mendeley
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Title
Estimating prevalence of avian haemosporidians in natural populations: a comparative study on screening protocols
Published in
Parasites & Vectors, March 2017
DOI 10.1186/s13071-017-2066-z
Pubmed ID
Authors

Farah Ishtiaq, Megha Rao, Xi Huang, Staffan Bensch

Abstract

Birds harbour an astonishing diversity of haemosporidian parasites. Renewed interest in avian haemosporidians as a model system has placed a greater emphasis on the development of screening protocols to estimate parasite prevalence and diversity. Prevalence estimates are often based on the molecular or blood-smear microscopy techniques. However, variation in diagnostic sensitivity among screening methodologies represents a potential source of bias that may lead to erroneous inference in comparisons of prevalence across studies. Here, we analyzed a suite of blood samples for the presence of parasites using four diagnostic tools and compared method-specific estimates of detection probability to assess the relative performance of screening strategies. We screened a total of 394 bird blood samples collected in India (n = 203) and Sweden (n = 191) for the combined presence of Plasmodium, Haemoproteus and Leucocytozoon with three PCR assays: (i) qPCR; (ii) restriction enzyme-based assay; and (iii) nested protocol. In addition, we examined blood smears for estimates of parasite intensity which was further screened using qPCR method to evaluate if parasite intensity shows a relationship with qPCR (Ct values). Furthermore, we used single infected samples from parasite intensities: low, medium, high, very high to establish the reproducibility in qPCR. For the combined data sets from India and Sweden, detection probability for submicroscopic and low intensity infections was highest for the qPCR method, followed by the nested protocol and the restriction enzyme-based assay. For high parasite intensities, the qPCR had high PCR reproducibility, with three out of three PCR replicates being positive and with consistent Ct values across all tenfold dilution series. For parasite intensities at very low and submicroscopic samples, the qPCR was reproducible in one out of the three replicates. The intensity of parasitemia estimated from smears showed inverse relationship with Ct values in both the Indian and Swedish data sets. Our study highlights the importance of accounting for methodological issues to better estimate infection in parasitological studies and illustrates how a wider deployment of diagnostic tools combined with statistical approaches is needed for each study, in order to provide adequate insight into the most appropriate approach to avoid erroneous inferences.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 9 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 100 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 100 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 21 21%
Researcher 19 19%
Student > Master 15 15%
Student > Bachelor 11 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 5 5%
Other 12 12%
Unknown 17 17%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 45 45%
Environmental Science 9 9%
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 8 8%
Veterinary Science and Veterinary Medicine 6 6%
Immunology and Microbiology 4 4%
Other 7 7%
Unknown 21 21%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 13. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 27 June 2022.
All research outputs
#2,425,110
of 22,757,090 outputs
Outputs from Parasites & Vectors
#481
of 5,452 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#48,743
of 310,526 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Parasites & Vectors
#12
of 162 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,757,090 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 89th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 5,452 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a little more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 5.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 310,526 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 162 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.