Journal
JOURNAL OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
Volume 25, Issue 7, Pages 1448-1453Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2012.02515.x
Keywords
Borrelia; host-parasite interactions; Lyme borreliosis; virulence; zoonotic disease
Categories
Funding
- Swedish research council
- Crafoord foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The trade-off hypothesis for virulence evolution assumes that between-host transmission rate is a positive and saturating function of pathogen exploitation and virulence, but there are as yet few tests of this assumption, in particular for vector-borne pathogens. Here, I show that the infectivity (probability of transmission) of the tick-borne bacterium Borrelia afzelii from two of its natural rodent hosts (bank vole and yellow-necked mouse) to its main tick vector increases asymptotically with increasing exploitation (measured as bacterial load in skin biopsies). Hence, this result provides support for one of the basic assumptions of the trade-off hypothesis. Moreover, there was no difference in infectivity between bank voles and yellow-necked mice despite bacterial loads being on average an order of magnitude higher in bank voles, most likely because ticks took larger blood meals from mice. This shows that interspecific variation in host resistance does not necessarily translate into a difference in infectivity.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available