Search results for " DISEASE"
showing 10 items of 27378 documents
Northward invasion of the parasitic deer ked ( Lipoptena cervi), is there geographical variation in pupal size and development duration?
2010
SUMMARYThe deer ked (Lipoptena cervi) is a common ectoparasite of cervids. During the last decades the species has rapidly invaded in northern Europe, especially in Finland, towards the north and increased its prevalence on the moose population. Consequently, during this rapid invasion the deer ked has faced more severe climatic conditions. We studied whether pupal size (measured as pupal weight) and pupal development duration of the deer ked varies along historical invasion zones and temperature zones towards north in Finland. Moreover, we explored possible size- and gender-dependent variation in pupal development duration. We divided wild-collected pupae in respect to their origin in two …
Urbanization, trace metal pollution, and malaria prevalence in the house sparrow.
2013
10 pages; International audience; Anthropogenic pollution poses a threat for the environment and wildlife. Trace metals (TMs) are known to have negative effects on haematological status, oxidative balance, and reproductive success in birds. These pollutants particularly increase in concentration in industrialized, urbanized and intensive agricultural areas. Pollutants can also interfere with the normal functioning of the immune system and, as such, alter the dynamics of host-parasite interactions. Nevertheless, the impact of pollution on infectious diseases has been largely neglected in natural populations of vertebrates. Here, we used a large spatial scale monitoring of 16 house sparrow (P…
The efficacy of whole human genome capture on ancient dental calculus and dentin
2019
Objectives Dental calculus is among the richest known sources of ancient DNA in the archaeological record. Although most DNA within calculus is microbial, it has been shown to contain sufficient human DNA for the targeted retrieval of whole mitochondrial genomes. Here, we explore whether calculus is also a viable substrate for whole human genome recovery using targeted enrichment techniques. Materials and methods Total DNA extracted from 24 paired archaeological human dentin and calculus samples was subjected to whole human genome enrichment using in-solution hybridization capture and high-throughput sequencing. Results Total DNA from calculus exceeded that of dentin in all cases, and altho…
Relationship between maternal transfer of immunity and mother fecundity in an insect.
2012
Trans-generational immune priming (TGIP) corresponds to the plastic adjustment of offspring immunity as a result of maternal immune experience. TGIP is expected to improve mother's fitness by improving offspring individual performance in an environment where parasitism becomes more prevalent. However, it was recently demonstrated that maternal transfer of immunity to the offspring is costly for immune-challenged female insects. Thus, these females might not provide immune protection to all their offspring because of the inherent cost of other fitness-related traits. Females are therefore expected to adjust their investment to individual offspring immune protection in ways that maximize the…
Drought and its legacy modulate the post-fire recovery of soil functionality and microbial community structure in a Mediterranean shrubland.
2019
The effects of drought on soil dynamics after fire are poorly known, particularly its long-term (i.e., years) legacy effects once rainfall returns to normal. Understanding this is particularly important for nutrient-poor soils in semi-arid regions affected by fire, in which rainfall is projected to decrease with climate change. Here, we studied the effects of post-fire drought and its legacy on soil microbial community structure and functionality in a Cistus-Erica shrubland (Spain). Rainfall total and patterns were experimentally modified to produce an unburned control (natural rainfall) and four burned treatments: control (natural rainfall), historical control (long-term average rainfall),…
Discrimination of fish populations using parasites: Random Forests on a ‘predictable’ host-parasite system
2010
SUMMARYWe address the effect of spatial scale and temporal variation on model generality when forming predictive models for fish assignment using a new data mining approach, Random Forests (RF), to variable biological markers (parasite community data). Models were implemented for a fish host-parasite system sampled along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Spain and were validated using independent datasets. We considered 2 basic classification problems in evaluating the importance of variations in parasite infracommunities for assignment of individual fish to their populations of origin: multiclass (2–5 population models, using 2 seasonal replicates from each of the populations) and 2…
Helminth communities of loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) from Central and Western Mediterranean Sea: the importance of host's ontogeny.
2009
We investigated the factors providing structure to the helminth communities of 182 loggerhead sea turtles, Caretta caretta, collected in 6 localities from Central and Western Mediterranean. Fifteen helminth taxa (10 digeneans, 4 nematodes and 1 acanthocephalan) were identified, of which 12 were specialist to marine turtles; very low numbers of immature individuals of 3 species typical from fish or cetaceans were also found. These observations confirm the hypothesis that phylogenetic factors restrict community composition to helminth species specific to marine turtles. There were significant community dissimilarities between turtles from different localities, the overall pattern being compat…
Cellular encapsulation in the eastern subterranean termite, Reticulitermes flavipes (Isoptera), against infection by the entomopathogenic fungus Meta…
2009
Reticulitermes flavipes workers were topically inoculated with approximately 10,000 conidia of the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium anisopliae. After being kept in groups of 20 individuals for 1-9 d, histopathological examination showed that termites had an individual immune reaction. The nodule formation at the point of entrance of the fungal hyphae was identified as a cellular encapsulation and the different steps in the nodule formation are described. The relative number of hemocytes per termite increased 24h after fungal exposure and remained high in the hemolymph for at least 3 d before decreasing back to pre-exposure levels. The role of an individual immune cellular reaction in soc…
Image analysis methods for assessment of H2O2 production and Plasmopara viticola development in grapevine leaves: application to the evaluation of re…
2013
article i nfo The grapevine downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola) provokes severe damages and destroys the harvest in the absence of an effective protection. Numerous fungicide treatments are thus generally necessary. To promote a sustainable production, alternative strategies of protection including new antifungal molecules, resistant geno- types or elicitor-induced resistance are under trial. To evaluate the relevance of these strategies, resistance tests are required. In this context, three image analysis methods were developed to read the results of tests performed to assessP.viticolasporulation and mycelial development, and H 2 O 2 production in leaves. They have been validated using elic…
Analysis of trematode parasite communities in fish eye lenses by pyrosequencing of naturally pooled DNA.
2011
Infections by multiple parasite species are common in nature and have important consequences for between species interactions and coevolutionary dynamics with the host populations. For example ecological and evolutionary factors underlying the structure of parasite communities determine the range of hosts a parasite can infect and set the basis for both evolution of host defences and parasite virulence as well as management of diseases. Studies investigating these factors have been facilitated in the recent past by genetic methods which surmount difficulties of traditional morphological taxonomy in identifying individual parasite species. Here we take a step further and present a novel meth…