The combined effects of bacterial symbionts and aging on life history traits in the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum.

ABSTRACT: While many endosymbionts have beneficial effects on hosts under specific ecological conditions, there can also be associated costs. In order to maximize their own fitness, hosts must facilitate symbiont persistence while preventing symbiont exploitation of resources, which may require tight regulation of symbiont populations. As a host ages, the ability to invest in such mechanisms may lessen or be traded off with demands of other life history traits, such as survival and reproduction. Using the pea aphid, Acyrthosiphon pisum, we measured survival, lifetime fecundity, and immune cell counts (hemocytes, a measure of immune capacity) in the presence of facultative secondary symbionts. Additionally, we quantified the densities of the obligate primary bacterial symbiont, Buchnera aphidicola, a

SUBMITTER: Laughton AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3911086 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature