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Background  In order to optimize net transmission success, parasites are hypothesized to evolve towards causing minimal damage to their reservoir host while obtaining high shedding rates. For many parasite species however this paradigm has not been tested, and conflicting results have been found regarding the effect of arenaviruses on their rodent host species. The rodent  Mastomys natalensis  is the natural reservoir host of several arenaviruses, including Lassa virus that is known to cause Lassa haemorrhagic fever in humans. Here, we examined the effect of three arenaviruses (Gairo, Morogoro and Lassa virus) on four parameters of wild-caught  Mastomys natalensis : body mass, head-body length, sexual maturity and fertility. After correcting for the effect of age, we compared these parameters between arenavirus-positive (arenavirus RNA or antibody) and negative animals using data from different field studies in Guinea (Lassa virus) and Tanzania (Morogoro and Gairo viruses).    Results  Although the sample sizes of our studies (1297, 749 and 259 animals respectively) were large enough to statistically detect small differences in body conditions, we did not observe any adverse effects of these viruses on  Mastomys natalensis . We did find that sexual maturity was significantly positively related with Lassa virus antibody presence until a certain age, and with Gairo virus antibody presence in general. Gairo virus antibody-positive animals were also significantly heavier and larger than antibody-free animals.    Conclusion  Together, these results suggest that the pathogenicity of arenaviruses is not severe in  M. natalensis , which is likely to be an adaptation of these viruses to optimize transmission success. They also suggest that sexual behaviour might increase the probability of  M. natalensis  to become infected with arenaviruses.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13071-017-2146-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

No measurable adverse effects of Lassa, Morogoro and Gairo arenaviruses on their rodent reservoir host in natural conditions