Endure your parasites: sleepy lizard movement is not affected by their ectoparasites

Movement is often used to indicate host vigour, as it has various ecological and evolutionary implications, and has been shown to be affected by parasites. We investigate the relationship between tick load and movement in the Australian sleepy lizard (Tiliqua rugosa Grey, 1825) using high resolution GPS tracking. This allowed us to track individuals across the entire activity season. We hypothesised that tick load negatively affects host movement (mean distance moved day-1). We used a multivariate statistical model informed by the ecology and biology of the host and parasite, their host-parasite relationship, and known host movement patterns. This allowed us to quantify the effects of ticks on lizard movement above and beyond effects of other factors such as time in the activity season, lizard body condition and stress. We did not find any support for our hypothesis. Instead, our results provide evidence that lizard movement is strongly driven by internal state (sex and body condition independent of tick load), and by external factors (environmental conditions). We suggest that the sleepy lizard has largely adapted to natural levels of tick infection in this system. Our results conform to host-parasite arms race theory, which predicts varying impacts of parasites on hosts in natural systems.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author