Chickadee breeding and parasite survey from Boulder, Sugarloaf, and MRS nest boxes, 2019 - 2021.

Between the years 2019 and 2021 chickadees were sampled at the NWT
LTER as part of a broader study encompassing multiple projects (The
Boulder Chickadee Study). Here we provide data on the presence of
infections with haemosporidian parasites for Black-capped Chickadees
(Poecile atricapillus) and Mountain Chickadees (P. gambeli).
Haemosporidian parasites are a diverse group of apicomplexans that
infect vertebrate hosts during a portion of their life cycle
(Valkiunas, G. 2004). We screened chickadees for infections with
three haemosporidian genera: Leucocytozoon, Plasmodium, and
Haemoproteus using a nested PCR protocol (Hellgren et al. 2004).
Both nestlings and adults were screened for parasites in 2019 and
2020 but we only screened adults in 2021. Chickadees sampled at NWT
LTER did not have detectable infections with Haemoproteus or
Plasmodium, however, we found multiple infections with
Leucocytozoon. In conjunction with findings at other field sites,
infections with Leucocytozoon parasites appear more common for adult
chickadees sampled at higher elevation, while Plasmodium parasites
were almost exclusively found in the city of Boulder (Theodosopoulos
et al. 2023).