10.5061/DRYAD.KN1BN
Seppälä, Otto
Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
Leicht, Katja
University of Jyväskylä
Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology
Data from: Quality attracts parasites: host condition-dependent
chemo-orientation of trematode larvae
Dryad
dataset
2015
Lymnaea stagnalis
host finding
Echinoparyphium aconiatum
host-parasite interactions
chemical detection
cercaria
2015-11-19T00:00:00Z
2015-11-19T00:00:00Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.12392
2396 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
1. Environmental factors impairing physiological condition of organisms
are assumed to predispose them to parasite infections. This is because
host immune function is typically condition-dependent. However, poor
physiological condition has been reported to reduce host susceptibility to
parasites in various systems. 2. We examined whether such an effect can be
due to altered exposure of hosts to active parasite transmission stages by
investigating chemo-orientation of free-swimming cercariae larvae of a
parasite Echinoparyphium aconiatum towards its snail host Lymnaea
stagnalis. 3. We used both long-term and short-term feeding treatments to
manipulate the body condition and physiological traits related to food
processing in experimental (i.e. target) snails and measured the
preference of cercariae towards snail-conditioned water (SCW) over clean
water. 4. We found that chemo-orientation of cercariae depended on the
nutritional status of target snails. High physiological condition
(long-term feeding) attracted parasites, but cercariae did not show
preference towards SCW from individuals in poor physiological condition
(long-term starvation). Food processing (short-term feeding treatments)
did not affect chemo-orientation. 5. Our results suggest that host
condition-dependent chemo-orientation of parasite larvae is a likely
mechanism explaining the reduced susceptibility of snails to infection due
to food limitation in our study system. In general, the use of
condition-dependent host cues can be highly beneficial for parasites as it
increases their transmission to high-quality hosts. Furthermore, evolving
counter adaptations to such a transmission strategy can be very difficult
for hosts.
data