Parasites can cause great fitness cost to their hosts, however, their impact on host populations is often unknown. In healthy populations, parasites are not expected to cause declines, but they can be devastating to small and/or declining populations. Nest ectoparasites can have detrimental impacts on the breeding output of their hosts and are emerging as a threat to several endangered bird species. Therefore, finding cost‐effect ways to reduce the impact of parasites on endangered hosts is crucial. Although ‘close‐order’ management techniques available to manage nest parasites are effective, they are often expensive and might not be suitable for species that are intolerant of intensive manipulation. We tested a low cost, ‘close‐order’ management technique to control parasites and boost nest productivity in an endangered passerine. The endangered forty‐spotted pardalote Pardalotus quadragintus is exploited by an ectoparasitic fly Passeromyia longicornis, an obligate subcutaneous parasite of nestling birds. We offered adult pardalotes the opportunity to ‘self‐fumigate’ their nests by supplying feathers treated with insecticide with which to line their nests and tested whether this boosted nest productivity. Pardalotes readily incorporated the experimental feathers in nest building, and survival of hatchlings was significantly higher in nests lined with treated feathers (95%) compared to nests lined with control feathers (8%). This represents a substantially greater improvement in reproductive success than in previous experimental studies, offering the strongest evidence yet that self‐fumigation is a highly effective, simple and low cost ‘close‐order’ management technique for defending endangered birds against ectoparasites.

中文翻译：

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濒临灭绝的禽类宿主使用杀虫剂处理过的羽毛对巢进行“自熏蒸”，繁殖成功率提高了十倍以上

寄生虫会给寄主带来巨大的健身成本，但是，它们对寄主种群的影响通常是未知的。在健康的人群中，寄生虫不会导致数量下降，但对小型和/或数量下降的人群可能具有毁灭性的影响。巢外寄生物可能对其寄主的繁殖产量产生有害影响，并且正在对几种濒危鸟类产生威胁。因此，找到降低寄生虫对濒临灭绝的宿主的影响的成本效应方法至关重要。尽管可用于管理巢内寄生虫的“近距离”管理技术是有效的，但它们通常很昂贵，可能不适用于不能进行密集操作的物种。我们测试了一种低成本的“封闭式”管理技术，以控制寄生虫并提高濒临绝种pass鸟的产蛋率。Pardalotus quadragintus被一种外寄生蝇Passeromyia longicornis所利用，是鸟类的专性皮下寄生虫。我们通过提供经过杀虫剂处理过的羽毛来排成巢，并测试这是否提高了巢的生产力，从而为成年比目鱼提供了“自熏”巢的机会。Pardalotes很容易将实验用羽毛纳入筑巢中，与衬有对照羽毛的巢（8％）相比，内衬处理过的羽毛的巢（95％）中幼体的存活率要高得多。与以前的实验研究相比，这代表了生殖成功的显着改善，这提供了最有力的证据，表明自熏蒸是一种用于保护濒临灭绝的鸟类免受外寄生虫侵害的高效，简单且低成本的“近距离”管理技术。