Do male and female beetles (Tenebrio molitor) respond differently to rat feces containing eggs from the tapeworm, Hymenolepis diminuta?
نویسنده
چکیده
Males and females often differ in their susceptibility and exposure to infection. Thus, they may also differ in their ability to avoid infection. The beetle, Tenebrio molitor, risks infection with cysticercoids when ingesting rat feces containing eggs of the tapeworm, Hymenolepis diminuta. Previous studies demonstrated that beetles sometimes prefer infective feces suggesting that the tapeworm influences the foraging behavior of beetles. After recording beetle movement in an arena containing infective and uninfective feces for one hour, sex main effects were not significant, but the effect of sex asked in trials was significant for males. Specifically, more male beetles occurred on the uninfective bait than on the infective bait. This observation suggests that male beetles avoid infective feces, which decreases their probability of infection with H. diminuta. If the cost of infection is higher in males, then selection to avoid infective feces may act more strongly on males.
منابع مشابه
Increased coprophagic activity of the beetle, Tenebrio molitor, on feces containing eggs of the tapeworm, Hymenolepis diminuta.
When provided with fecal pellets from uninfected (control) rats and rats infected with the tapeworm Hymenolepis diminuta, more fed and starved (72 h) female and starved male Tenebrio molitor fed on fecal pellets from infected- than from control rats; compared to fecal pellets from controls rats, fed males avoided the infective fecal pellets. Uninfective and infective fecal pellets had similar m...
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In their intermediate host, parasites alter aspects of host physiology including waste production and body weight. Further, this alteration may differ between female and male hosts. To study this, a beetle (Tenebrio molitor)-tapeworm (Hymenolepis diminuta) system was used. Infected and uninfected male and female beetles were individually housed in vials without food. Each beetle's weight change...
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Parasite effects on host fitness and immunology are often intensity-dependent. Unfortunately, only few experimental studies on insect-parasite interactions attempt to control the level of infection, which may contribute substantial variation to the fitness or immunological parameters of interest. The tapeworm Hymenolepis diminuta-flour beetle Tenebrio molitor model-has been used extensively for...
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Natural anti-parasitic compounds in plants such as condensed tannins (CT) have anthelmintic properties against a range of gastrointestinal nematodes, but for other helminths such effects are unexplored. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of CT from three different plant extracts in a model system employing the rat tapeworm, Hymenolepis diminuta, in its intermediate host, Tenebrio m...
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