Blood Parasite Infection Data from Spectacled Eiders (Somateria fischeri), Alaska (USA), 2008-2012

This dataset includes two spreadsheets associated with a study of three genera of blood parasites (Leucocytozoon, Haemoproteus, Plasmodium) in 185 Spectacled Eiders (Somateria fischeri) sampled in Alaska, 2008-2012. The first spreadsheet provides age, sex, location, and blood parasite (hematozoa) infection data for three different genera of blood parasites. Hematozoa DNA, from eider blood samples, was detected by amplifying a 479bp fragment of the Cytochrome-b gene using a nested PCR technique with primers specific for the three target hematozoa genera. Amplicons were sequenced and assigned to genera by the nucleotide BLAST function of the NCBI GenBank database. Infection data are provided as NCBI GenBank accession numbers for DNA sequences obtained from samples that tested positive for infection. The second spreadsheet provides the geographic coordinates of the five sampling sites.