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High virulence is associated with pathogen spreadability in a songbird–bacterial system
How directly transmitted pathogens benefit from harming hosts is key to understanding virulence evolution. It is recognized that pathogens benefit from high within-host loads, often associated with virulence. However, high virulence may also directly augment spread of a given amount of pathogen, her...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Royal Society
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9832288/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36686556 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220975 |
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author | Hawley, Dana M. Thomason, Courtney A. Aberle, Matt A. Brown, Richard Adelman, James S. |
author_facet | Hawley, Dana M. Thomason, Courtney A. Aberle, Matt A. Brown, Richard Adelman, James S. |
author_sort | Hawley, Dana M. |
collection | PubMed |
description | How directly transmitted pathogens benefit from harming hosts is key to understanding virulence evolution. It is recognized that pathogens benefit from high within-host loads, often associated with virulence. However, high virulence may also directly augment spread of a given amount of pathogen, here termed ‘spreadability’. We used house finches and the conjunctival pathogen Mycoplasma gallisepticum to test whether two components of virulence—the severity of conjunctival inflammation and behavioural morbidity produced—predict pathogen spreadability. We applied ultraviolet powder around the conjunctiva of finches that were inoculated with pathogen treatments of distinct virulence and measured within-flock powder spread, our proxy for ‘spreadability’. When compared to uninfected controls, birds infected with a high-virulence, but not low-virulence, pathogen strain, spread significantly more powder to flockmates. Relative to controls, high-virulence treatment birds both had more severe conjunctival inflammation—which potentially facilitated powder shedding—and longer bouts on feeders, which serve as fomites. However, food peck rates and displacements with flockmates were lowest in high-virulence treatment birds relative to controls, suggesting inflammatory rather than behavioural mechanisms likely drive augmented spreadability at high virulence. Our results suggest that inflammation associated with virulence can facilitate pathogen spread to conspecifics, potentially favouring virulence evolution in this system and others. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9832288 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | The Royal Society |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-98322882023-01-20 High virulence is associated with pathogen spreadability in a songbird–bacterial system Hawley, Dana M. Thomason, Courtney A. Aberle, Matt A. Brown, Richard Adelman, James S. R Soc Open Sci Organismal and Evolutionary Biology How directly transmitted pathogens benefit from harming hosts is key to understanding virulence evolution. It is recognized that pathogens benefit from high within-host loads, often associated with virulence. However, high virulence may also directly augment spread of a given amount of pathogen, here termed ‘spreadability’. We used house finches and the conjunctival pathogen Mycoplasma gallisepticum to test whether two components of virulence—the severity of conjunctival inflammation and behavioural morbidity produced—predict pathogen spreadability. We applied ultraviolet powder around the conjunctiva of finches that were inoculated with pathogen treatments of distinct virulence and measured within-flock powder spread, our proxy for ‘spreadability’. When compared to uninfected controls, birds infected with a high-virulence, but not low-virulence, pathogen strain, spread significantly more powder to flockmates. Relative to controls, high-virulence treatment birds both had more severe conjunctival inflammation—which potentially facilitated powder shedding—and longer bouts on feeders, which serve as fomites. However, food peck rates and displacements with flockmates were lowest in high-virulence treatment birds relative to controls, suggesting inflammatory rather than behavioural mechanisms likely drive augmented spreadability at high virulence. Our results suggest that inflammation associated with virulence can facilitate pathogen spread to conspecifics, potentially favouring virulence evolution in this system and others. The Royal Society 2023-01-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9832288/ /pubmed/36686556 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220975 Text en © 2023 The Authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Organismal and Evolutionary Biology Hawley, Dana M. Thomason, Courtney A. Aberle, Matt A. Brown, Richard Adelman, James S. High virulence is associated with pathogen spreadability in a songbird–bacterial system |
title | High virulence is associated with pathogen spreadability in a songbird–bacterial system |
title_full | High virulence is associated with pathogen spreadability in a songbird–bacterial system |
title_fullStr | High virulence is associated with pathogen spreadability in a songbird–bacterial system |
title_full_unstemmed | High virulence is associated with pathogen spreadability in a songbird–bacterial system |
title_short | High virulence is associated with pathogen spreadability in a songbird–bacterial system |
title_sort | high virulence is associated with pathogen spreadability in a songbird–bacterial system |
topic | Organismal and Evolutionary Biology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9832288/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36686556 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220975 |
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