Sex-based population structure of ectoparasites from Neotropical bats

To address sex-based aspects of population structure, I evaluated sex ratios, co-occurrence of the sexes, correlations of abundance of the sexes, and dispersion of individuals of each sex for each of 34 host-ectoparasite associations from Paraguayan bats.

Of the 34 host-ectoparasite associations, 23 exhibited positive co-occurrence, 27 exhibited positive correlation of abundances, 4 exhibited male sex bias, 1 exhibited female sex bias, 27 had clumped distributions of males, and 26 had clumped distributions of females. No associations exhibited negative co-occurrence, negative correlation of abundance, or hyper-dispersed males or females. There was no evidence for sexual segregation, sex-based niche partitioning, or intrasexual selection in any host-ectoparasite association.