Abstract: . . .  condition (Altizer, Davis, Cook, & Cherry, in press), and male plumage (Nolan, Hill, & Stoehr, 1998). Effects of MG on host forag- ing and social behavior also seem likely, but have not been explicitly tested to date. Because house finches spend a large amount of time at bird feeders during the fall and winter months, when disease transmission is likely to occur, comparison of feed- ing behaviors of birds with and without MG could identify parasite-induced changes in host behavior that might be important to disease spread. For ex- ample, if birds infected with MG spend more total time at bird feeders and contaminate feeders with infectious material, this could increase bacterial transmission to uninfected birds. In this study we videotaped house finches visit- ing a backyard bird feeding station during a period of high prevalence of conjunctivitis to quantify the feeding behavior of birds with and without actual signs of infection. Specifically, we compared total feeding duration, feeding efficiency, feeding rate, total food intake,and perch displacement (i.e., where birds were forcibly displaced from their feeder perch by another bird). We also examined flock sizes as- sociated with focal individuals with and without conjunctivitis . Because infected birds might experi- ence impaired vision and lower physical activity (Kollias et al., . . .
. . .  of host abundance resulting from a new in- fectious disease. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 97 , 53035306. Kollias, G. V., Sydenstricker, K. V., Kollias, H. W., Ley, D. H., Hosseini, P. R., Connolly,V., & Dhondt,A. A. (2004). Experimental infection of individually caged house finches with Mycoplasma gallisepticum . Journal of Wild- life Diseases, 40 , 7986. Levri, E. P. (1999). Parasite-induced change in host behav- ior of a freshwater snail: Parasitic manipulation or byproduct of infection? Behavioral Ecology, 10 , 234241. Ley, D. H., Swarthout, E., Sydenstricker, K. V., Kollias, G. V., & Dhondt, A. A. (2003). Mycoplasma gallisepticum conjunctivitis in house finches ( Carpodacus mexicanus ). Correlations among clinical signs and detection by poly- merase chain reaction from conjunctival and choanal swabs. In 52nd Annual Conference of the Wildlife Dis- ease Association , Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Lindstrm, K., Van der Veen, I. T., Legault, B. A., & Lundstrm, J. O. (2003). Activity and predator escape performance of common greenfinches Carduelis chloris infected with sindbis virus. Ardea, 91 , 103111. Luttrell, M. P., Stallknecht, D. E., Fischer, J. R., Sewell, C. T., & Kleven, S. H. (1998). Natural Mycoplasma Page 8 8 HOTCHKISS ET AL. gallisepticum . . .
--3000,2,750,3163,32313