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Are solo infections of the diphyllobothriidean cestode Schistocephalus solidus more virulent than multiple infections?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 June 2018

David C. Heins Open the ORCID record for David C. Heins [Opens in a new window] ,
Kristine N. Moody  and
Sophia Miller
David C. Heins
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA
Kristine N. Moody
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA
Sophia Miller
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA
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Abstract

We performed a long-term natural experiment investigating the impact of the diphyllobotriidean cestode Schistocephalus solidus on the body condition and clutch size (CS) of threespine stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus, its second intermediate host, and the growth of larval parasites in host fish. We tested the hypothesis that single S. solidus infections were more virulent than multiple infections. We also asked whether the metrics of mean and total parasite mass (proxies for individual and total volume, respectively) were consistent with predictions of the resource constraints or the life history strategy (LHS) hypothesis for the growth of, hence exploitation by, larval helminths in intermediate hosts. The samples were drawn from Walby Lake, Alaska in eight of 11 years. Host body condition and CS (egg number per spawning bout) decreased significantly with intensity after adjustments for host size and parasite index. Thus, infections have an increasingly negative impact on measures of host fitness with greater intensity, in contrast to the hypothesis that single infections are more harmful than multiple infections. We also found that mean parasite mass decreased with intensity while total parasite mass increased with intensity as predicted by the LHS hypothesis.

Keywords

Gasterosteus aculeatushost–parasite interactionslife history strategymultiple infectionsparasitismresource constraintsingle infectionsthreespine sticklebackvirulence
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 146 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 97 - 104
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

*

Present address: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.

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