Data from: The effect of urban habitat use on parasitism in mammals: a meta-analysis

Rates of urbanization are increasing globally, with potential consequences
for the dynamics of parasites and their wildlife hosts. A small subset of
mammal species have the dietary and behavioural flexibility to survive in
urban settings. The changes that characterize urban ecology – including
landscape transformation, modified diets, and shifts in community
composition – can either increase or decrease susceptibility and exposure
to parasites. We used a meta-analytic approach to systematically assess
differences in endoparasitism between mammals in urban and non-urban
habitats. Parasite prevalence estimates in matched urban and non-urban
mammal populations from 33 species were compiled from 46 published
studies, and an overall effect of urban habitation on parasitism was
derived after controlling for study and parasite genus. Parasite life
cycle type and host order were investigated as moderators of the effect
sizes. We found that parasites with complex life cycles were less
prevalent in urban carnivore and primate populations than in non-urban
populations. However, we found no difference in urban and non-urban
prevalence for parasites in rodent and marsupial hosts, nor differences in
prevalence for parasites with simple life cycles in any host taxa. Our
findings therefore suggest the disruption of some parasite transmission
cycles in the urban ecological community.