Host heterogeneity affects both parasite transmission to and fitness on subsequent hosts

Stephenson, Jessica F., Young, Kyle A., Fox, Jordan, Jokela, Jukka, Cable, Joanne ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8510-7055 and Perkins, Sarah E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7457-2699 2017. Host heterogeneity affects both parasite transmission to and fitness on subsequent hosts. Philosophical Transactions B: Biological Sciences 372 (1719) , 20160093. 10.1098/rstb.2016.0093

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Abstract

Infectious disease dynamics depend on the speed, number and fitness of parasites transmitting from infected hosts (‘donors’) to parasite–naive ‘recipients’. Donor heterogeneity likely affects these three parameters, and may arise from variation between donors in traits including: (i) infection load; (ii) resistance; (iii) stage of infection, and (iv) previous experience of transmission. We used the Trinidadian guppy, Poecilia reticulata, and a directly transmitted monogenean ectoparasite, Gyrodactylus turnbulli, to experimentally explore how these sources of donor heterogeneity affect the three transmission parameters. We exposed parasite–naive recipients to donors (infected with a single parasite strain) differing in their infection traits, and found that donor infection traits had diverse and sometimes interactive effects on transmission. First, although transmission speed increased with donor infection load, the relationship was nonlinear. Second, while the number of parasites transmitted generally increased with donor infection load, more resistant donors transmitted more parasites, as did those with previous transmission experience. Finally, parasites transmitting fromexperienced donors exhibited lower population growth rates on recipients than those from inexperienced donors. Stage of infection had little effect on transmission parameters. These results suggest that a more holistic consideration of within-host processes will improve our understanding of between-host transmission and hence disease dynamics. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Opening the black box: re-examining the ecology and evolution of parasite transmission’.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Biosciences
Subjects:	Q Science > Q Science (General) R Medicine > R Medicine (General)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	within-host and between-host dynamics, parasite fitness, host quality, Poecilia reticulata, Gyrodactylus, infectious disease
Publisher:	Royal Society, The
ISSN:	0962-8436
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	1 February 2017
Date of Acceptance:	15 September 2016
Last Modified:	10 Nov 2024 07:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/97978

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