English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Parasites are generally thought of as being intimately tied to their hosts, yet many parasites produce free-living stages. This raises the question: what are parasites doing when they are not being parasitic? We studied the spatiotemporal dynamics of free-living infectious stages and asked whether these dynamics were correlated with infections in 2 focal host species. We used a com- mon and virulent bacterial parasite, Spirobacillus cienkowskii, which infects Daphnia spp. Densities of free-living infective stages were high in a stratified, eutrophic lake (up to ~10 5 to 10 6 cells l -1 ), but also spatiotemporally variable. There was a positive correlation between the density of these free- living stages and the prevalence of infected Daphnia on the subsequent sampling date. This suggests that free-living stages increase in environmental reservoirs prior to the start of epidemics in Daphnia. We also studied the ability of free-living stages to persist outside their hosts for long periods of time. In laboratory microcosms, we found that S. cienkowskii persisted under simulated environmental conditions for more than 2 mo, before declining to below our method's detection limit after approxi- mately 3 mo. Overall, our study of a common parasite of Daphnia reveals the potential importance of free-living stages to epidemic dynamics, and suggests that it is important to consider environmental reservoirs when studying disease dynamics.

Spatiotemporal dynamics of free-living stages of a bacterial parasite of zooplankton