BACKGROUND Parasites may actively seek for hosts and may use a number of adaptive strategies to promote their reproductive success and host colonization. These strategies will necessarily influence their host specificity and seasonality. Ticks are important ectoparasites of vertebrates, which (in addition to directly affecting their hosts) may transmit a number of pathogens. In Europe, three hard tick species (Ixodidae: Ixodes ariadnae, I. simplex and I. vespertilionis) and at least two soft tick species (Argasidae: Argas transgariepinus and A. vespertilionis) are specialized for bats. METHODS Here we report data on the host range of these ticks and the seasonality of tick infestation on wild caught bats in south-east Europe. We collected 1803 ticks from 30 species of bats living in underground shelters (caves and mines) from Romania and Bulgaria. On the basis of tick-host associations, we tested several hypotheses on host-parasite evolutionary adaptations regulating host specificity, seasonality and sympatric speciation. RESULTS We observed significant differences in host specificity and seasonality of abundance between the morphologically different bat specialist ticks (I. simplex and I. vespertilionis) likely caused by their host choice and their respective host-seeking behavior. The two highly generalist, but morphologically similar tick species (I. ariadnae and I. vespertilionis) showed temporal differences in occurrence and activity, thus exploiting significantly different host communities while occurring in geographical sympatry. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that bat-specialist ticks show a wide range of adaptations to their hosts, with differences in specificity, seasonality of occurrence, the prevalence and intensity of infestation and all these contribute to a successful division of temporal niches of ticks sharing morphologically similar hosts occurring in geographical sympatry.

中文翻译：

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蝙蝠和壁虱：东欧的蝙蝠专家壁虱的寄主选择和季节性。

背景技术寄生虫可以积极地寻找宿主并且可以使用许多适应性策略来促进它们的繁殖成功和宿主定殖。这些策略必然会影响其宿主特异性和季节性。cks虫是脊椎动物的重要外寄生物，除了直接影响宿主外，may虫还可能传播许多病原体。在欧洲，蝙蝠专门使用三种硬壁虱种（I科：Ixodes ariadnae，单纯形I.和I. vespertilionis）和至少两种软壁虱种（Argasidae：Argas transgariepinus和A. vespertilionis）。方法在这里，我们报告了这些tick的寄主范围以及东南欧野生捕获蝙蝠of侵扰的季节性数据。我们从生活在罗马尼亚和保加利亚的地下避难所（洞穴和地雷）中的30种蝙蝠中收集了1803滴tick。在壁虱-宿主关联的基础上，我们测试了关于宿主-寄生虫进化适应的几种假设，这些适应性调节宿主的特异性，季节性和同胞形态。结果我们观察到，形态不同的蝙蝠专业tick（I。simplex和I. vespertilionis）之间的寄主特异性和丰度的季节性差异很大，这可能是由于它们的寄主选择和各自的寄主寻求行为引起的。这两个高度通才，但在形态上相似的壁虱物种（I. ariadnae和I. vespertilionis）在发生和活动上表现出时间差异，因此在地理上出现时利用了显着不同的寄主群落。结论我们得出的结论是，蝙蝠专业tick在适应宿主方面表现出广泛的适应性，但特异性不同，