Data from: Patterns of parasite community dissimilarity: the significant role of land use and lack of distance-decay in a bat—helminth system

Increasing community dissimilarity across geographic distance has been
described for a wide variety of organisms and understanding its underlying
causes is key to understanding mechanisms driving patterns of
biodiversity. Both niche-based and neutral processes may produce a
distance decay relationship; however, disentangling their relative
influence requires simultaneous examination of multiple potential drivers.
Parasites represent a unique opportunity in which to study distance decay
because community dissimilarity may depend on environmental requirements
and dispersal capability of parasites as well also those of their hosts.
We used big brown bats Eptesicus fuscus and their intestinal helminths to
investigate: 1) independent contributions of geographic and environmental
distances on dissimilarity of intestinal helminth component communities
between populations of big brown bats; 2) which environmental variables
best explained variation in community dissimilarity; and 3) whether
similar patterns of decay with geographic or environmental distance were
observed for within-host population and within-individual host parasite
communities. We used compositional measures of community dissimilarity to
examine how parasite communities may change with geographic distance and
varying environmental conditions. Non-spatial variables strongly
influenced compositional parasite community dissimilarity over multiple
community scales, and we observed little evidence for spatial processes
such as distance decay. Environment surrounding roost sites better
predicted helminth community dissimilarity than any other class of
variables and landcover classes representing anthropogenic modification
consistently explained variation in community structure. Our results
indicate that human disturbance drives significant patterns of parasite
community dissimilarity, most likely by changing the presence or abundance
of intermediate hosts in an area.