Flea Infestation Patterns in Small Mammals from Northern Xinjiang

This dataset documents flea infestation across 723 individual small mammals from eight species, including Spermophilus undulatus, Cricetulus migratorius, and Mus musculus, captured in northern Xinjiang, China from 2022 to 2025. It was collected to analyze how host species identity and individual traits influence flea parasitism, using hurdle negative binomial regression models. The data provides ecological context for flea surveillance in plague-endemic regions.

Use Cases

• Model flea infestation probability and intensity using host species identity and traits like body mass and sex with hurdle negative binomial regression.
• Analyze the association between host body mass and flea burden to understand size-dependent parasitism.
• Compare flea prevalence and abundance between adult and immature host individuals to assess age-related infestation patterns.
• Investigate the dominant role of Spermophilus undulatus, which accounted for 65.98% of hosts, in local host-flea associations and its epidemiological relevance.

Strengths

• Data covers 723 individual hosts from eight distinct small mammal species, providing a multi-species community sample.
• Collection spanned four counties in northern Xinjiang, China from 2022 to 2025, offering recent temporal and specific geographic coverage.
• Analysis employs statistical methods like Simpson’s diversity index and hurdle negative binomial regression for robust ecological modeling.

Limitations

• The dataset is small in scale (19.0 KB), indicating limited raw data or a summary document rather than a large tabular dataset.
• Specific column names and sample data are unavailable, limiting direct analytical use without further clarification from the source document.
• Findings are geographically focused on northern Xinjiang, which may limit generalizability to other plague-endemic regions.

Provenance

Source

figshare, authored by Yiyan Zhang.

Collection Method

Small mammals were trapped, and fleas were collected from hosts and the surrounding environment, followed by morphological identification.

Time Range

2022 to 2025.

Freshness

Last updated March 20, 2026, indicating recent availability.

Geography

Four counties in northern Xinjiang, China.