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Figure 5 in Infection behavior, life history, and host parasitism rates of Emblemasoma erro (Diptera: Sarcophagidae), an acoustically hunting parasitoid of the cicada Tibicen dorsatus (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)

Figure 5 Relationship of effective clutch size and temperature to larval residence time. Each data point represents the mean residence time of the parasitoid larvae inside a single host cicada along with the effective clutch size (number of larvae emerging from the host) and the mean air temperature experienced by the host during parasitoid development. The planar surface represents the multiple linear regression model of the effects of temperature and effective clutch size on larval residence time. Lines connected to the data points indicate the vertical distance of each data point from the regression surface (i.e., the residuals).

Figure 4 in Infection behavior, life history, and host parasitism rates of Emblemasoma erro (Diptera: Sarcophagidae), an acoustically hunting parasitoid of the cicada Tibicen dorsatus (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)

Figure 4 Larviposition by E. erro. A first-instar larva of E. erro on the right fore wing of a T. dorsatus moments after larviposition (larva indicated by blue arrow). The cicada's head and foreleg are at top center.

Figure 3 in Infection behavior, life history, and host parasitism rates of Emblemasoma erro (Diptera: Sarcophagidae), an acoustically hunting parasitoid of the cicada Tibicen dorsatus (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)

Figure 3 Locations of study sites. Filled circles indicate the primary sites used for estimating host parasitism rates, and open circles indicate secondary sites used for additional collections of cicadas and flies. Primary sites are referenced in the text by the counties in which they were located: 1) Harvey Co., 2) McPherson Co., 3) Reno Co., 4) Ellsworth Co., 5) Hamilton Co., and 6) Prowers Co. Both T. dorsatus and E. erro were found at all 11 sites. The inset map indicates the location of the main map in the United States.

Figure 6 in Infection behavior, life history, and host parasitism rates of Emblemasoma erro (Diptera: Sarcophagidae), an acoustically hunting parasitoid of the cicada Tibicen dorsatus (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)

Figure 6 Emergence of E. erro from its host. A mature larva of E. erro emerges from between the left operculum and the abdomen of a deceased male T. dorsatus from Prowers Co., CO.

opencc-zeroNov 2021View details →

Data from: Host-parasite dynamics shaped by temperature and genotype: quantifying the role of underlying vital rates

1. Global warming challenges the persistence of local populations, not only through heat-induced stress, but also through indirect biotic changes. We study the interactive effects of temperature, competition and parasitism in the water flea Daphnia magna. 2. We carried out a common garden experiment monitoring the dynamics of Daphnia populations along a temperature gradient. Halfway through the experiment, all populations became infected with the ectoparasite Amoebidium parasiticum, enabling us to study interactive effects of temperature and parasite dynamics. We combined Integral Projection Models with epidemiological models, parameterized using the experimental data on the performance of individuals within dynamic populations. This enabled us to quantify the contribution of different vital rates and epidemiological parameters to population fitness across temperatures and Daphnia clones originating from two latitudes. 3. Interactions between temperature and parasitism shaped competition, where Belgian clones performed better under infection than Norwegian clones, mainly due to higher survival. Infected Daphnia populations performed better at higher than at lower temperatures, mainly due to an increased host capability of reducing parasite loads. Temperature strongly affected individual vital rates, but effects largely cancelled out on a population-level. In contrast, parasitism strongly reduced fitness through consistent negative effects on all vital rates. As a result, temperature-mediated parasitism was more important than the direct effects of temperature in shaping population dynamics. Both the outcome of the competition treatments and the observed extinction patterns support our modeling results. 4. Our study highlights that shifts in biotic interactions can be equally or more important for responses to warming than direct physiological effects of warming, emphasizing that we need to include such interactions in our studies to predict the competitive ability of natural populations experiencing global warming.

opencc-zeroJan 2022View details →

Population-level variation in parasite resistance due to differences in immune initiation and rate of response

Closely related populations often differ in resistance to a given parasite, as measured by infection success or failure. Yet, the immunological mechanisms of these evolved differences are rarely specified. Does resistance evolve via changes to the host's ability to recognize that an infection exists, actuate an effective immune response, or attenuate that response? We tested whether each of these phases of the host response contributed to threespine sticklebacks' recently evolved resistance to their tapeworm Schistocephalus solidus. While marine stickleback and some susceptible lake fish permit fast-growing tapeworms, other lake populations are resistant and suppress tapeworm growth via a fibrosis response. We subjected lab-raised fish from three populations (susceptible marine 'ancestors', a susceptible lake population, a resistant lake population), to a novel immune challenge using an injection of: 1) a saline control, 2) alum, a generalized pro-inflammatory adjuvant that causes fibrosis, 3) a tapeworm protein extract, or 4) a combination of alum and tapeworm protein). With enough time, all three populations generated a robust fibrosis response to the alum treatments. Yet, only the resistant population exhibited a fibrosis response to the tapeworm protein alone. Thus, these populations differed in their ability to respond to the tapeworm protein but shared an intact fibrosis pathway. The resistant population also initiated fibrosis faster in response to alum, and was able to attenuate fibrosis, unlike the susceptible populations' slow but longer-lasting response to alum. As fibrosis has pathological side-effects that reduce fecundity, the faster recovery by the resistant population may reflect an adaptation to mitigate the costs of immunity. Broadly, our results confirm that parasite detection and immune initiation, activation speed, and immune attenuation simultaneously contribute to the evolution of parasite resistance and adaptations to infection in natural populations.

opencc-zeroDec 2019View details →

Data from: The effect of parasite infection on the recombination rate of the yellow fever mosquito Aedes aegyti

Sexual reproduction and meiotic recombination generate new genetic combinations and may thereby help an individual infected by a parasite to protect its offspring from being infected. While this idea is often used to understand the evolutionary forces underlying the maintenance of sex and recombination, it also suggests that infected individuals should increase plastically their rate of recombination. We tested the latter idea with the mosquito Aedes aegypti and asked whether females infected by the microsporidian Vavraia culicis were more likely to have recombinant offspring than uninfected females. To measure the rate of recombination over a chromosome we analysed combinations of microsatellites on chromosome 3 in infected and uninfected females, in the (uninfected) males they copulated with and in their offspring. As predicted, the infected females were more likely to have recombinant offspring than the uninfected ones. These results show the ability of a female to diversify her offspring in response to parasitic infection by plastically increasing her recombination rate.

opencc-by-4.0May 2021View details →

Figure 2. a in Determining some biological parameters of Aenasius arizonensis (Girault) (Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae) on cotton mealybug and the rate of parasitism in field conditions

Figure 2. a) Male of Aenasius arizonensis, b) Female of Aenasius arizonensis.

opencc-zeroApr 2023View details →

A meta-analysis of how parasites affect host consumption rates

Parasites are known to mediate trophic interactions and can, for example, modify how consumers acquire resources. These modifications of host feeding behaviour can be imposed through three interconnected mechanisms affecting: (1) host food acquisition, (2) host food digestion or (3) host energy budgets. As a result, infected hosts may consume more, less or the same amount of food compared to their uninfected conspecifics. It is commonly assumed that infected hosts have lower consumption rates than uninfected hosts, but a comprehensive quantitative synthesis investigating the effects of parasites on host consumption rate has been lacking thus far. To fill this knowledge gap, we systematically searched for experimental studies that evaluated changes in consumption rate of infected vs uninfected hosts. In total, we extracted 158 effect sizes from 68 studies. We then performed meta-analyses of mean differences in host consumption rates and their variation. The analyses were carried out for all taxonomic groups as well as separately for vertebrate and invertebrate hosts. The main-effects meta-analyses confirmed a generally negative effect of parasites on host consumption rates; infected hosts consumed on average 25% less food than their uninfected conspecifics. In addition, there was a significant increase in the variability in host consumption rate, on average by 25%, indicating that parasites can have variable effects on the foraging behaviour of their hosts. The meta-regression models revealed that several moderator variables related to host and parasite characteristics influence host consumption rate. Experimental infection had a stronger influence on variance effects than natural infection. Parasitic infections reduced consumption rate of vertebrate hosts by 28% and thus more strongly than those of invertebrates, which were reduced by 22%. We conclude with recommendations to facilitate future ecological research syntheses on host-parasite interactions and beyond.

opencc-zeroJul 2023View details →

Parasitism rate differs between herbivore generations in the univoltine, but not bivoltine, range

With climate change, plant-feeding insects might increase their number of annual generations (voltinism). However, to what degree the emergence of a new herbivore generation affects the parasitism rate has not been explored. We performed a field experiment to test whether the parasitism rate differs between the first and the second generation of a specialist leaf miner (Tischeria ekebladella), both in the naturally univoltine and bivoltine parts of the leaf miner's distribution. We found an interactive effect between herbivore generation and geographical range on the parasitism rate. The parasitism rate was higher in the first compared to the second host generation in the part of the range that is naturally univoltine, whereas it did not differ between generations in the bivoltine range. Our experiment highlights that shifts in herbivore voltinism might release top-down control, with major consequences for natural and applied systems.

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2023View details →

Dataset underlying the study "Changes in longevity, parasitization rate and development time of the whitefly parasitoid Encarsia formosa under future climate conditions"

This dataset is underlying the scientific publication titled "Changes in longevity, parasitization rate and development time of the whitefly parasitoid Encarsia formosa under future climate conditions", published in the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/biological-control">Biological Control </a>journal.  The first section of the dataset provides the meterological parameters used to drive climate chambers for the experiments conducted by LIST and UNICT researchers. The second section of the dataset provides a graphical representation, including the relevant metadata, of the survival rate of adult Encarsia formosa (a whitefly biocontrol agent) under various climate conditions. The third and final section of the dataset includes an overview of the whitefly parasitization rate of Encarsia formosa according to the different parameters of the experiments undertaken by the LIST and UNICT scientists. The provided figures and tables in the dataset are further discussed and interpreted in detail, as well as their subsequent results, in the scientific publication. This research was conducted within the VIRTIGATION project, which is part of the EU Open Research Data pilot. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 101000570.

Figure 1 in Infection behavior, life history, and host parasitism rates of Emblemasoma erro (Diptera: Sarcophagidae), an acoustically hunting parasitoid of the cicada Tibicen dorsatus (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)

Figure 1 Male Tibicen dorsatus, Harvey Co., KS.

Figure 2 in Infection behavior, life history, and host parasitism rates of Emblemasoma erro (Diptera: Sarcophagidae), an acoustically hunting parasitoid of the cicada Tibicen dorsatus (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)

Figure 2 Female Emblemasoma erro, Ellsworth Co., KS.

Figure 7 in Infection behavior, life history, and host parasitism rates of Emblemasoma erro (Diptera: Sarcophagidae), an acoustically hunting parasitoid of the cicada Tibicen dorsatus (Hemiptera: Cicadidae)

Figure 7 The distribution of parasitoid loads (larvae per host) of infected cicadas in the field.