Search results for "Infection"

Trans-generational immune priming is constrained by the maternal immune response in an insect.

2012

5 pages; International audience; Immune-challenged vertebrate and invertebrate females can transfer immunity to their off spring. Th is trans-generational immune priming (TGIP) is benefi cial for the off spring if the maternal infection risk persists across generations. However, because immunity is costly, fi tness consequences of TGIP have been found in primed off spring. Furthermore, transferring immunity to off spring may be costly for immune-challenged females who are also carrying the costs of their immune response. A negative relationship between levels of immunity between mothers and off spring might therefore be expected. Consistent with this hypothesis, we show that in the insect, …

Cyclic hantavirus epidemics in humans--predicted by rodent host dynamics.

2009

Wildlife-originated zoonotic diseases are a major contributor to emerging infectious diseases. Hantaviruses cause thousands of human disease cases annually worldwide, and understanding and predicting human hantavirus epidemics still poses unsolved challenges. Here we studied the three-level relationships between the human disease nephropathia epidemica (NE), its etiological agent Puumala hantavirus (PUUV) and the rodent host of the virus, the bank vole (Myodes glareolus). A large and long-term data set (14 years, 2583 human NE cases and 4751 trapped bank voles) indicates that the number of human infections shows both seasonal and multi-annual fluctuations, is influenced by the phase of vole…

Infection and spread of root rot caused byHeterobasidionspp. inPinus contortaplantations in Northern Europe: three case studies

2019

This study investigated the origins and spread patterns of Heterobasidion root disease in three Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loudon plantations established on forest and agricultural land and subjected to three different management scenarios. Trees with decline symptoms and stumps remaining from the previous rotation were sampled for fungal isolations. Ten isolates of Heterobasidion parviporum Niemelä & Korhonen and 425 of Heterobasidion annosum (Fr.) Bref. were tested for clonality through somatic compatibility tests. The following conclusions were reached: (i) P. contorta is highly susceptible to H. annosum and H. parviporum and both pathogens cause dieback of P. contorta; (ii) H. annosum…

Cercarial behaviour alters the consumer functional response of three‐spined sticklebacks

2020

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Born-Torrijos, A., Paterson, R., van Beest, G., Vyhlídalová, T., Henriksen, E.H., Knudsen, R., Kristoffersen, R., Amundsen, P.-A. & Soldánová, M. (2021). Cercarial behaviour alters the consumer functional response of three-spined sticklebacks. Journal of Animal Ecology, 90, 978-988, which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13427. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by st…

Sensitive measure of prevalence and parasitaemia of haemosporidia from European blackbird (Turdus merula) populations: value of PCR-RFLP and quantita…

2006

8 pages; International audience; Haemosporidian parasites are common in birds in which they act as an important selective pressure. While most studies so far have focused on the effect of their prevalence on host life-history traits, no study has measured the effect of parasitaemia. We developed molecular methods to detect, identify and quantify haemosporidia in 2 natural populations of the Blackbird Turdus merula. Three different parasite genotypes were found - 1 Haemoproteus and 2 Plasmodium. A PCR-RFLP screening revealed that only approximately 3% of blackbirds were free of parasites, compared to the 34% of uninfected birds estimated by blood smear screening. A quantitative PCR (q-PCR) a…

Effect of repeated exposure to Plasmodium relictum (lineage SGS1) on infection dynamics in domestic canaries.

2010

7 pages; International audience; Parasites are known to exert strong selection pressures on their hosts and, as such, favour the evolution of defence mechanisms. The negative impact of parasites on their host can have substantial consequences in terms of population persistence and the epidemiology of the infection. In natural populations, however, it is difficult to assess the cost of infection while controlling for other potentially confounding factors. For instance, individuals are repeatedly exposed to a variety of parasite strains, some of which can elicit immunological memory, further protecting the host from subsequent infections. Cost of infection is, therefore, expected to be partic…

Genome sequence of the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum

2010

The genome of the pea aphid shows remarkable levels of gene duplication and equally remarkable gene absences that shed light on aspects of aphid biology, most especially its symbiosis with Buchnera.

2021

Social insects are hosts of diverse parasites, but the influence of these parasites on phenotypic host traits is not yet well understood. Here, we tracked the survival of tapeworm-infected ant workers, their uninfected nest-mates and of ants from unparasitized colonies. Our multi-year study on the ant Temnothorax nylanderi, the intermediate host of the tapeworm Anomotaenia brevis, revealed a prolonged lifespan of infected workers compared with their uninfected peers. Intriguingly, their survival over 3 years did not differ from those of (uninfected) queens, whose lifespan can reach two decades. By contrast, uninfected workers from parasitized colonies suffered from increased mortality comp…

Freshwater mussels (Anodonta anatina) reduce transmission of a common fish trematode (eye fluke, Diplostomum pseudospathaceum)

2017

SUMMARYRecent results suggest that bivalves can play an important role in restraining the spread of various aquatic infections. However, the ability of mussels to remove free-living stages of macroparasites and reduce their transmission is still understudied, especially for freshwater ecosystems. We investigated the influence of the common freshwater mussel (Anodonta anatina) on the transmission of a trematode (eye fluke, Diplostomum pseudospathaceum), which frequently infects fish in farms and natural habitats. In our experiments, mussels caused a significant decrease (P < 0·001) in the abundance of trematode free-living stages, from 6520 to 1770 cercariae L−1 on average (about 4-fold i…

Increasing water temperature and disease risks in aquatic systems: Climate change increases the risk of some, but not all, diseases

2010

Global warming may impose severe risks for aquatic animal health if increasing water temperature leads to an increase in the incidence of parasitic diseases. Essentially, this could take place through a temperature-driven effect on the epidemiology of the disease. For example, higher temperature may boost the rate of disease spread through positive effects on parasite fitness in a weakened host. Increased temperature may also lengthen the transmission season leading to higher total prevalence of infection and more widespread epidemics. However, to date, general understanding of these relationships is limited due to scarcity of long-term empirical data. Here, we present one of the first long…