How do Nutritional Stress and La Crosse Virus Infection Interact? Tests for Effects on Willingness to Blood Feed and Fecundity in Aedes albopictus (Diptera: Culicidae).

ABSTRACT: Evolutionary theory predicts that vector-borne pathogens should have low virulence for their vector because of selection against pathogens that harm the vector sufficiently to reduce transmission. Environmental factors such as nutritional stress can alter vector-pathogen associations by making the vectors more susceptible to pathogens (condition-dependent competence) and vulnerable to the harm caused by pathogen replication (condition-dependent virulence). We tested the hypotheses of condition-dependent competence and condition-dependent virulence by examining the interactive effects of short-term sugar deprivation and exposure to La Crosse virus (LACV) in female Aedes albopictus (Skuse). We predicted that infection status interacts with sugar deprivation to alter willingness to blood feed

SUBMITTER: Westby KM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4723681 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature