Navigating infection risk during oviposition and cannibalistic foraging in a holometabolous insect.

ABSTRACT: Deciding where to eat and raise offspring carries important fitness consequences for all animals, especially if foraging, feeding, and reproduction increase pathogen exposure. In insects with complete metamorphosis, foraging mainly occurs during the larval stage, while oviposition decisions are made by adult females. Selection for infection avoidance behaviors may therefore be developmentally uncoupled. Using a combination of experimental infections and behavioral choice assays, we tested if Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies avoid infectious environments at distinct developmental stages. When given conspecific fly carcasses as a food source, larvae did not discriminate between carcasses that were clean or infected with the pathogenic Drosophila C Virus (DCV), even though cannibali

SUBMITTER: Siva-Jothy JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6257210 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov-Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature