Infection intensity and infectivity of the tick-borne pathogen Borrelia afzelii.
Author
Summary, in English
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.
Department/s
Publishing year
2012
Language
English
Pages
1448-1453
Publication/Series
Journal of evolutionary biology
Volume
25
Issue
7
Links
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Topic
- Biological Sciences
Keywords
- Borrelia
- host–parasite interactions
- Lyme borreliosis
- virulence
- zoonotic disease
Status
Published
Project
- Borrelia in rodents
Research group
- Molecular Ecology and Evolution Lab
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1420-9101