Mohammed, Ryan S., Reynolds, Michael  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3977-253X, James, Joanna, Williams, Chris, Mohammed, Azad, Ramsubhag, Adesh, Van Oosterhout, Cock and Cable, Joanne ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8510-7055
2016.
Getting into hot water: sick guppies frequent warmer thermal conditions.
Oecologia
181
(3)
, pp. 911-917.
10.1007/s00442-016-3598-1
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Abstract
Ectotherms depend on the environmental temperature for thermoregulation and exploit thermal regimes that optimise physiological functioning. They may also frequent warmer conditions to up-regulate their immune response against parasite infection and/or impede parasite development. This adaptive response, known as ‘behavioural fever’, has been documented in various taxa including insects, reptiles and fish, but only in response to endoparasite infections. Here, a choice chamber experiment was used to investigate the thermal preferences of a tropical freshwater fish, the Trinidadian guppy (Poecilia reticulata), when infected with a common helminth ectoparasite Gyrodactylus turnbulli, in female-only and mixed-sex shoals. The temperature tolerance of G. turnbulli was also investigated by monitoring parasite population trajectories on guppies maintained at a continuous 18, 24 or 32 °C. Regardless of shoal composition, infected fish frequented the 32 °C choice chamber more often than when uninfected, significantly increasing their mean temperature preference. Parasites maintained continuously at 32 °C decreased to extinction within 3 days, whereas mean parasite abundance increased on hosts incubated at 18 and 24 °C. We show for the first time that gyrodactylid-infected fish have a preference for warmer waters and speculate that sick fish exploit the upper thermal tolerances of their parasites to self medicate.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Biosciences |
| Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2016. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com |
| Publisher: | Springer |
| ISSN: | 0029-8549 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 30 March 2016 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 28 February 2016 |
| Last Modified: | 23 May 2023 18:04 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/87863 |
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