Opening a can of worms: a test of the co-infection facilitation hypothesis.

Autor: Rodgers ML; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA. mlrodge2@ncsu.edu.; Department of Biological Sciences, North Carolina State University, Morehead City, NC, 28557, USA. mlrodge2@ncsu.edu., Bolnick DI; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, 06269, USA.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Oecologia [Oecologia] 2024 Feb; Vol. 204 (2), pp. 317-325. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jun 30.
DOI: 10.1007/s00442-023-05409-7
Abstrakt: Parasitic infections are a global occurrence and impact the health of many species. Coinfections, where two or more species of parasite are present in a host, are a common phenomenon across species. Coinfecting parasites can interact directly or indirectly via their manipulation of (and susceptibility to) the immune system of their shared host. Helminths, such as the cestode Schistocephalus solidus, are well known to suppress immunity of their host (threespine stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus), potentially facilitating other parasite species. Yet, hosts can evolve a more robust immune response (as seen in some stickleback populations), potentially turning facilitation into inhibition. Using wild-caught stickleback from 20 populations with non-zero S. solidus prevalence, we tested an a priori hypothesis that S. solidus infection facilitates infection by other parasites. Consistent with this hypothesis, individuals with S. solidus infections have 18.6% higher richness of other parasites compared to S. solidus-uninfected individuals from the same lakes. This facilitation-like trend is stronger in lakes where S. solidus is particularly successful but is reversed in lakes with sparse and smaller cestodes (indicative of stronger host immunity). These results suggest that a geographic mosaic of host-parasite co-evolution might lead to a mosaic of between-parasite facilitation/inhibition effects.
(© 2023. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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