Quite a few papers have been published trying to describe and explain patterns of parasite species richness (PSR) in primates. I dug out a few that I think provide some major findings as below. Charles Nunn is obviously one of the key authors you should google if you are looking for more papers (also about carnivores), and Sonia Altizer, too. I will upload the PDFs onto the dataONE shared folder, in case anyone wants to take a look.
Host ecological traits and PSR: Nunn et al 2003, The American Naturalist.
Host diversification rate and PSR: Nunn et al 2004, The American Naturalist.
Host latitude and PSR: Nunn et al 2005, Diversity and Distributions.
At last, a book by Charles Nunn and Sonia Altizer (2006) — Infectious Diseases in Primates: Behavior, Ecology and Evolution. I don’t have the book with me, but I remember seeing some review of this topic in the book (it might be in chapter 6).
I will be traveling to visit Dr. Olaf Bininda-Emonds’ lab at Oldenburg University. I will collaborate with Olaf on constructing some phylogenetic trees for carnivore species, and hopefully I can learn how to build trees myself.ย It will be a 7-8 hours train trip from where I am staying, so I will be out of email access on Monday and the day I come back (I don’t know which date for sure, yet).