Exposure to natural pathogens reveals costly aphid response to fungi but not bacteria.

ABSTRACT: Immune responses are costly, causing trade-offs between defense and other host life history traits. Aphids present a special system to explore the costs associated with immune activation since they are missing several humoral and cellular mechanisms thought important for microbial resistance, and it is unknown whether they have alternative, novel immune responses to deal with microbial threat. Here we expose pea aphids to an array of heat-killed natural pathogens, which should stimulate immune responses without pathogen virulence, and measure changes in life-history traits. We find significant reduction in lifetime fecundity upon exposure to two fungal pathogens, but not to two bacterial pathogens. This finding complements recent genomic and immunological studies indicating that pea aphids

SUBMITTER: Barribeau SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3936394 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature