Ornithonyssus sylviarum (Canestrini & Fanzago, 1877)

Dube, William C., Hund, Amanda K., Turbek, Sheela P. & Safran, Rebecca J., 2018, Microclimate and host body condition influence mite population growth in a wild bird-ectoparasite system, International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife 7 (3), pp. 301-308 : 302

2.1. Northern Fowl Mites ( Ornithonyssus sylviarum )

The NFM is a common pest in industrial poultry, but is known to infect over 70 species of wild birds ( Murillo and Mullens, 2013). In North American barn swallows, the NFM completes its entire life cycle in the nest, moving between the nest material and the birds. Its life cycle consists of five stages: egg, larva, protonymph, deutonymph, and adult. Protonymphs and adults require blood meals ( Murillo and Mullens, 2013). The life cycle from egg to adult is completed in 5–12 days ( Murillo and Mullens, 2013). Virgin females can lay unfertilized eggs, which result in predominantly male offspring, which they can then mate with to begin an infestation ( Murillo and Mullens, 2013).

Research investigating the biotic and abiotic factors driving population dynamics in NFMs has primarily been conducted with commercial poultry ( Chen and Mullens, 2008; Mullens et al., 2009; Owen et al., 2009; De La Riva et al., 2015). In general, the poultry literature shows that mites survive longer without a blood meal in humid environments (∼85%), and in relatively lower temperatures ( Chen and Mullens, 2008). Additionally, NFM populations are negatively impacted by strong host inflammatory responses in these systems ( Owen et al., 2009).

However, the host specificity of NFM is unknown and wild populations may differ from those studied in commercial poultry in important ways. For example, NFM populations studied in commercial poultry settings cannot survive long without a blood meal ( Chen and Mullens, 2008), whereas mite populations in wild systems are known to survive between breeding seasons ( Barclay, 1988; Hund et al., 2015 a, 2015b). This may indicate that mites infecting barn swallows are adapted to a broader range of environmental contexts, including prolonged periods without food such as those encountered during the winter.