Getting into hot water: sick guppies frequent warmer thermal conditions

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:	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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