Rodent ectoparasite diversity in response to anthropogenic disturbance

Rodents are important hosts for ectoparasites such as fleas, ticks, and mites, which means they are also important intermediate hosts for many zoonotic diseases. As anthropogenic environments bring humans and rodents into closer contact, an understanding of host-ectoparasite ecology is essential to predict and manage disease spillover risks. We aimed to understand how disturbances in vegetation cover affect rodent ectoparasite diversity, prevalence, spatial segregation, host (i.e. sex, genus, size, habitat domain), and environmental (i.e. vegetation structure, forest cover, rainfall) variables in the state of Michoacan, Mexico. We compared these variables by trapping rodents in five paired disturbed (reduced vegetation cover, regular human presence) and undisturbed (no reduction in vegetation cover, no human presence) sites in the summer and autumn of 2022. From 108 trapped rodents, we collected 123 ectoparasites on 34 individuals. We found no difference in rodent diversity, ectoparasit..., Study sites. Our study sites were in the municipalities of Nuevo San Juan, Tancitaro, and Uruapan in the state of Michoacan, Mexico, in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt.  Our aim was to find the relationship between ectoparasite diversity and anthropogenic disturbance. We defined the disturbance status of our sampling sites based on their forest structure and cover. Five paired disturbed and undisturbed sampling sites were chosen to be, on average, 300 m apart between sites within a pair. Undisturbed sites had high forest cover (see results below), while disturbed sites had highly disturbed vegetation due to human activities. At each site, we measured plant (trees and shrubs) height, density, and growth form along three transects. Each transect was 50 m long and 2 m wide (Perkins et al., 2019). Each plant was identified at the species level with the help of community professionals from the Forestry Direction of Nuevo San Juan.
To sample rodents, at each site, we placed 50 Sherman traps i..., , # Rodent ectoparasite diversity in response to anthropogenic disturbance

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.g1jwstqxv](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.g1jwstqxv)

The data sets contain information on the rodents and associated ectoparasites in response to anthropogenic disturbance in five pairs of disturbed and undisturbed sites in Nuevo San Juan, Michoacan, Mexico.

## Description of the data and file structure

We imported .csv files into RStudio to do the analyses. The databases used were:

* **20240123_plant_transects_V2.csv** - Contains information on vegetation communities and structure collected in disturbed and undisturbed sites of Nuevo San Juan, Michoacan, Mexico. The variables in this database are:

* ID: Consecutive number of the individual plant measured.
* site: It refers to the site where the data were collected. It is composed of the identifier of the treatment (D=Disturbed, and C=Undisturbed), and the pair number (1 to 5).
* sampling_line: identifier of t...