When parasites disagree: Evidence for parasite-induced sabotage of host manipulation
Host manipulation is a common parasite strategy to alter host behavior in a manner to enhance parasite fitness usually by increasing the parasite's transmission to the next host. In nature, hosts often harbor multiple parasites with agreeing or conflicting interests over host manipulation. Natu...
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| Format: | Online |
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Blackwell Publishing Ltd
2015
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4409835/ |
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pubmed-4409835 |
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pubmed-44098352015-04-29 When parasites disagree: Evidence for parasite-induced sabotage of host manipulation Hafer, Nina Milinski, Manfred Original Articles Host manipulation is a common parasite strategy to alter host behavior in a manner to enhance parasite fitness usually by increasing the parasite's transmission to the next host. In nature, hosts often harbor multiple parasites with agreeing or conflicting interests over host manipulation. Natural selection might drive such parasites to cooperation, compromise, or sabotage. Sabotage would occur if one parasite suppresses the manipulation of another. Experimental studies on the effect of multi-parasite interactions on host manipulation are scarce, clear experimental evidence for sabotage is elusive. We tested the effect of multiple infections on host manipulation using laboratory-bred copepods experimentally infected with the trophically transmitted tapeworm Schistocephalus solidus. This parasite is known to manipulate its host depending on its own developmental stage. Coinfecting parasites with the same aim enhance each other's manipulation but only after reaching infectivity. If the coinfecting parasites disagree over host manipulation, the infective parasite wins this conflict: the noninfective one has no effect. The winning (i.e., infective) parasite suppresses the manipulation of its noninfective competitor. This presents conclusive experimental evidence for both cooperation in and sabotage of host manipulation and hence a proof of principal that one parasite can alter and even neutralize manipulation by another. Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2015-03 2015-03-10 /pmc/articles/PMC4409835/ /pubmed/25643621 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/evo.12612 Text en © 2015 The Author(s). Evolution published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of The Society for the Study of Evolution. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Hafer, Nina Milinski, Manfred |
| spellingShingle |
Hafer, Nina Milinski, Manfred When parasites disagree: Evidence for parasite-induced sabotage of host manipulation |
| author_facet |
Hafer, Nina Milinski, Manfred |
| author_sort |
Hafer, Nina |
| title |
When parasites disagree: Evidence for parasite-induced sabotage of host manipulation |
| title_short |
When parasites disagree: Evidence for parasite-induced sabotage of host manipulation |
| title_full |
When parasites disagree: Evidence for parasite-induced sabotage of host manipulation |
| title_fullStr |
When parasites disagree: Evidence for parasite-induced sabotage of host manipulation |
| title_full_unstemmed |
When parasites disagree: Evidence for parasite-induced sabotage of host manipulation |
| title_sort |
when parasites disagree: evidence for parasite-induced sabotage of host manipulation |
| description |
Host manipulation is a common parasite strategy to alter host behavior in a manner to enhance parasite fitness usually by increasing the parasite's transmission to the next host. In nature, hosts often harbor multiple parasites with agreeing or conflicting interests over host manipulation. Natural selection might drive such parasites to cooperation, compromise, or sabotage. Sabotage would occur if one parasite suppresses the manipulation of another. Experimental studies on the effect of multi-parasite interactions on host manipulation are scarce, clear experimental evidence for sabotage is elusive. We tested the effect of multiple infections on host manipulation using laboratory-bred copepods experimentally infected with the trophically transmitted tapeworm Schistocephalus solidus. This parasite is known to manipulate its host depending on its own developmental stage. Coinfecting parasites with the same aim enhance each other's manipulation but only after reaching infectivity. If the coinfecting parasites disagree over host manipulation, the infective parasite wins this conflict: the noninfective one has no effect. The winning (i.e., infective) parasite suppresses the manipulation of its noninfective competitor. This presents conclusive experimental evidence for both cooperation in and sabotage of host manipulation and hence a proof of principal that one parasite can alter and even neutralize manipulation by another. |
| publisher |
Blackwell Publishing Ltd |
| publishDate |
2015 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4409835/ |
| _version_ |
1613215685439127552 |