T. guttata sometimes serves as a
model organism. Study of the immune response of
T. guttata to parasites is informative for avians as a class. Its
transcriptome responses to infection have been studied by Watson
et al., 2017 and Scalf
et al., 2019.
T. guttata is not known to have ever been infected with any
Plasmodium. Valkiūnas
et al., 2018 find
T. guttata seems totally
resistant to the malaria parasite that is most common among avians,
Plasmodium relictum. == Vocalization ==