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PARASITE VIRULENCE AND HOST IMMUNE DEFENSE: HOST IMMUNE RESPONSE IS RELATED TO NEST REUSE IN BIRDS
Author(s) -
Møller Anders Pape,
Erritzøe Johannes
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
evolution
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.84
H-Index - 199
eISSN - 1558-5646
pISSN - 0014-3820
DOI - 10.1111/j.1558-5646.1996.tb03592.x
Subject(s) - biology , virulence , nest (protein structural motif) , immune system , host (biology) , parasite hosting , transmission (telecommunications) , zoology , horizontal transmission , ecology , immunology , genetics , gene , engineering , biochemistry , virus , world wide web , computer science , electrical engineering
The evolution of parasite virulence has been hypothesized to be related to the mode of parasite transmission; horizontally transmitted parasites can afford to damage their hosts more than vertically transmitted parasites because increased virulence does not reduce the probability of transmission to new hosts. This relationship between mode of transmission and virulence would particularly select for improved immune defense in hosts that are subject to horizontally transmitted parasites. Among avian hosts, hole nesters and colonial nesters frequently reuse nest sites because of nest‐site limitation, and this results in an increased frequency of horizontal transmission. Comparison of the size of two organs involved in the immune defense between pairs of bird species being either hole or open nesters, or colonially or solitarily nesting birds, respectively, revealed that the size of the bursa of Fabricius and the spleen were consistently larger in hole nesters than in open nesters, and similarly in colonially breeding bird species than in solitarily breeding species. These results support the hypothesis that mode of parasite transmission affects the evolution of immune defence in hosts.