Parasite communities on islands are assembled through multiple immigrations and/or in‐situ diversification. In this study, we used a phylogenetic approach to investigate the role of such processes in shaping current patterns of diversity in Leucocytozoon , a group of haemosporidian blood parasites infecting whites eyes ( Zosterops ) endemic to the Mascarene archipelago (south‐western Indian Ocean). We found that this parasite...

Ecology Letters (2010) 13: 1515–1524 Abstract Sexual transmission is an important mode of disease propagation, yet its mechanisms remain largely unknown in wild populations. Birds comprise an important model for studying sexually transmitted microbes because their cloaca provides a potential for both gastrointestinal pathogens and endosymbionts to become incorporated into ejaculates. We experimentally demonstrate in a wild pop...

Summary Sulphate esters make up a large proportion of the available sulphur in agricultural soils, and many pseudomonads can desulphurize a range of aryl‐ and alkylsulphate esters to provide sulphur for growth. After miniTn 5 transposon mutagenesis of Pseudomonas putida S‐313, we isolated 19 mutants that were defective in cleavage of the chromogenic sulphate ester 5‐bromo‐4‐chloro‐3‐indoxylsulphate (X‐sulphate). Analysis of th...