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The mite Acarus farris inducing defensive behaviors and reducing fitness of termite Coptotermes formosanus: implications for phoresy as a precursor to parasitism

BACKGROUND: The ecology and evolution of phoretic mites and termites have not been well studied. In particular, it is unknown whether the specific relationship between mites and termites is commensal or parasitic. High phoretic mite densities have often been found to occur in weak termite colonies,...

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Autores principales: Chen, Yong, Zhang, Lijun, Zhang, Shijun, Liu, Bingrong, Zeng, Wenhui, Li, Zhiqiang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9210751/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35729504
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-02036-3
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author Chen, Yong
Zhang, Lijun
Zhang, Shijun
Liu, Bingrong
Zeng, Wenhui
Li, Zhiqiang
author_facet Chen, Yong
Zhang, Lijun
Zhang, Shijun
Liu, Bingrong
Zeng, Wenhui
Li, Zhiqiang
author_sort Chen, Yong
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The ecology and evolution of phoretic mites and termites have not been well studied. In particular, it is unknown whether the specific relationship between mites and termites is commensal or parasitic. High phoretic mite densities have often been found to occur in weak termite colonies, suggesting that the relationship is closer to that of parasitism than commensalism. RESULTS: To examine this, Coptotermes formosanus was used as a carrier, and Acarus farris as the phoretic mite. We used video recordings to observe termite social immunity behaviors and bioassay to examine termite fitness. Our results showed that the attachment of the mite on the termite can enhance termite social immunity behaviors like alarm vibration and grooming frequency while decreasing the duration of individual grooming episodes in phoretic mites. Further, A. farris phoresy led to a 22.91% reduction in termite abdomen volume and a 3.31-fold increase in termite mortality. CONCLUSIONS: When termites groom more frequently, the consequence is short duration of grooming bouts. This may be indicative of a trade-off which provides suggestive evidence that frequent social behaviors may cost termites energy. And this caused phoretic behavior hastened termites’ death, and helped propagate the population of mites feeding on dead termites. So, it provides a case for phoresy being a precursor to parasitism, and the specific relationship between A. farris and C. formosanus is closer to parasitism than to commensalism. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12862-022-02036-3.
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spelling pubmed-92107512022-06-22 The mite Acarus farris inducing defensive behaviors and reducing fitness of termite Coptotermes formosanus: implications for phoresy as a precursor to parasitism Chen, Yong Zhang, Lijun Zhang, Shijun Liu, Bingrong Zeng, Wenhui Li, Zhiqiang BMC Ecol Evol Research Article BACKGROUND: The ecology and evolution of phoretic mites and termites have not been well studied. In particular, it is unknown whether the specific relationship between mites and termites is commensal or parasitic. High phoretic mite densities have often been found to occur in weak termite colonies, suggesting that the relationship is closer to that of parasitism than commensalism. RESULTS: To examine this, Coptotermes formosanus was used as a carrier, and Acarus farris as the phoretic mite. We used video recordings to observe termite social immunity behaviors and bioassay to examine termite fitness. Our results showed that the attachment of the mite on the termite can enhance termite social immunity behaviors like alarm vibration and grooming frequency while decreasing the duration of individual grooming episodes in phoretic mites. Further, A. farris phoresy led to a 22.91% reduction in termite abdomen volume and a 3.31-fold increase in termite mortality. CONCLUSIONS: When termites groom more frequently, the consequence is short duration of grooming bouts. This may be indicative of a trade-off which provides suggestive evidence that frequent social behaviors may cost termites energy. And this caused phoretic behavior hastened termites’ death, and helped propagate the population of mites feeding on dead termites. So, it provides a case for phoresy being a precursor to parasitism, and the specific relationship between A. farris and C. formosanus is closer to parasitism than to commensalism. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12862-022-02036-3. BioMed Central 2022-06-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9210751/ /pubmed/35729504 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-02036-3 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/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Chen, Yong
Zhang, Lijun
Zhang, Shijun
Liu, Bingrong
Zeng, Wenhui
Li, Zhiqiang
The mite Acarus farris inducing defensive behaviors and reducing fitness of termite Coptotermes formosanus: implications for phoresy as a precursor to parasitism
title The mite Acarus farris inducing defensive behaviors and reducing fitness of termite Coptotermes formosanus: implications for phoresy as a precursor to parasitism
title_full The mite Acarus farris inducing defensive behaviors and reducing fitness of termite Coptotermes formosanus: implications for phoresy as a precursor to parasitism
title_fullStr The mite Acarus farris inducing defensive behaviors and reducing fitness of termite Coptotermes formosanus: implications for phoresy as a precursor to parasitism
title_full_unstemmed The mite Acarus farris inducing defensive behaviors and reducing fitness of termite Coptotermes formosanus: implications for phoresy as a precursor to parasitism
title_short The mite Acarus farris inducing defensive behaviors and reducing fitness of termite Coptotermes formosanus: implications for phoresy as a precursor to parasitism
title_sort mite acarus farris inducing defensive behaviors and reducing fitness of termite coptotermes formosanus: implications for phoresy as a precursor to parasitism
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9210751/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35729504
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-02036-3
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