A molecular war: convergent and ontogenetic evidence for adaptive host manipulation in related parasites infecting divergent hosts.

ABSTRACT: Mermithids (phylum Nematoda) and hairworms (phylum Nematomorpha) somehow drive their arthropod hosts into water, which is essential for the worms' survival after egression. The mechanisms behind this behavioural change have been investigated in hairworms, but not in mermithids. Establishing a similar mechanistic basis for host behavioural change between these two distantly related parasitic groups would provide strong convergent evidence for adaptive manipulation and insight into how these parasites modify and/or create behaviour. Here, we search for this convergence, and also contrast changes in physiology between hosts infected with immature and mature mermithids to provide the first ontogenetic evidence for adaptive manipulation by disentangling host response and pathology from the para

SUBMITTER: Herbison R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6892044 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature