CENTENNIAL HONORS COLLEGE
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2015
Poster Presentation
Does Fire Affect Parasitism in Midwestern Mice?
Ashley Huette
Faculty Mentor: Shawn Meagher
Biology
Parasites are organisms that obtain nutrients from a host, at the host’s expense. They are ecologically
important because they can determine the abundance of their hosts and so they can determine community
composition. A major question in parasite ecology is, what environmental factors make some parasites
more abundant compared to others? For example, humidity is important to some parasites because they
require moist soils in order for their infective eggs or juveniles to persist. One factor that could lower
humidity in soil is forest fires. However, despite the potentially important effects of fire on parasite
transmission and abundance, there have been few studies on how fires affect parasitism, and to date, there
is no clear pattern with respect to the effects of fire on parasitism. My goal is to examine whether fire
affects parasite abundance in mice in a new habitat, Midwestern oak forest, to test for a general pattern as
to whether or not parasite abundance increases or decreases after a forest fire. Mice will be captured at
Kibbe Life Science Station using traps set in paired forest plots that are either burned or unburned. Mice
will be euthanized and dissected for external and internal parasites. Parasites will be preserved and later
identified. Generalized linear models will be used to determine if mice size, sex, or forest fire affect
parasitism in the Midwestern mice.