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How cunning is the puppet-master? Cestode-infected fish appear generally fearless
Trophically transmitted parasites have life cycles that require the infected host to be eaten by the correct type of predator. Such parasites should benefit from an ability to suppress the host’s fear of predators, but if the manipulation is imprecise the consequence may be increased predation by no...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8993785/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35307765 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00436-022-07470-2 |
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author | Svensson, P. Andreas Eghbal, Ramin Eriksson, Ramona Nilsson, Emelie |
author_facet | Svensson, P. Andreas Eghbal, Ramin Eriksson, Ramona Nilsson, Emelie |
author_sort | Svensson, P. Andreas |
collection | PubMed |
description | Trophically transmitted parasites have life cycles that require the infected host to be eaten by the correct type of predator. Such parasites should benefit from an ability to suppress the host’s fear of predators, but if the manipulation is imprecise the consequence may be increased predation by non-hosts, to the detriment of the parasite. Three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) infected by the cestode Schistocephalus solidus express reduced antipredator behaviours, but it is unknown whether this is an example of a highly precise manipulation, a more general manipulation, or if it can even be attributed to mere side effects of disease. In a series of experiments, we investigated several behaviours of infected and uninfected sticklebacks. As expected, they had weak responses to simulated predatory attacks compared to uninfected fish. However, our results suggest that the parasite induced a general fearlessness, rather than a precise manipulation aimed at the correct predators (birds). Infected fish had reduced responses also when attacked from the side and when exposed to odour from a fish predator, which is a “dead-end” for this parasite. We also tested whether the reduced anti-predator behaviours were mere symptoms of a decreased overall vigour, or due to parasite-induced hunger, but we found no support for these ideas. We propose that even imprecise manipulations of anti-predator behaviours may benefit parasites, for example, if other behaviours are altered in a way that increases the exposure to the correct predator. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00436-022-07470-2. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8993785 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-89937852022-04-22 How cunning is the puppet-master? Cestode-infected fish appear generally fearless Svensson, P. Andreas Eghbal, Ramin Eriksson, Ramona Nilsson, Emelie Parasitol Res Fish Parasitology - Original Paper Trophically transmitted parasites have life cycles that require the infected host to be eaten by the correct type of predator. Such parasites should benefit from an ability to suppress the host’s fear of predators, but if the manipulation is imprecise the consequence may be increased predation by non-hosts, to the detriment of the parasite. Three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) infected by the cestode Schistocephalus solidus express reduced antipredator behaviours, but it is unknown whether this is an example of a highly precise manipulation, a more general manipulation, or if it can even be attributed to mere side effects of disease. In a series of experiments, we investigated several behaviours of infected and uninfected sticklebacks. As expected, they had weak responses to simulated predatory attacks compared to uninfected fish. However, our results suggest that the parasite induced a general fearlessness, rather than a precise manipulation aimed at the correct predators (birds). Infected fish had reduced responses also when attacked from the side and when exposed to odour from a fish predator, which is a “dead-end” for this parasite. We also tested whether the reduced anti-predator behaviours were mere symptoms of a decreased overall vigour, or due to parasite-induced hunger, but we found no support for these ideas. We propose that even imprecise manipulations of anti-predator behaviours may benefit parasites, for example, if other behaviours are altered in a way that increases the exposure to the correct predator. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00436-022-07470-2. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2022-03-21 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8993785/ /pubmed/35307765 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00436-022-07470-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Fish Parasitology - Original Paper Svensson, P. Andreas Eghbal, Ramin Eriksson, Ramona Nilsson, Emelie How cunning is the puppet-master? Cestode-infected fish appear generally fearless |
title | How cunning is the puppet-master? Cestode-infected fish appear generally fearless |
title_full | How cunning is the puppet-master? Cestode-infected fish appear generally fearless |
title_fullStr | How cunning is the puppet-master? Cestode-infected fish appear generally fearless |
title_full_unstemmed | How cunning is the puppet-master? Cestode-infected fish appear generally fearless |
title_short | How cunning is the puppet-master? Cestode-infected fish appear generally fearless |
title_sort | how cunning is the puppet-master? cestode-infected fish appear generally fearless |
topic | Fish Parasitology - Original Paper |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8993785/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35307765 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00436-022-07470-2 |
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