TY - JOUR
T1 - Experimental reduction of host Plasmodium infection load affects mosquito survival
AU - Gutiérrez-López, Rafael
AU - Martínez-de la Puente, Josué
AU - Gangoso, Laura
AU - Yan, Jiayue
AU - Soriguer, Ramón
AU - Figuerola, Jordi
N1 - Funding Information:
Special thanks to Alberto Pastoriza for his help during the fieldwork and with mosquito capture and identification, and to Isabel Martín and Laura Gómez for their help with the laboratory analyses. We thank Plácido and Maribel for allowing us to sample mosquitoes at “La Cañada de los Pájaros”. We would also like to thank anonymous reviewers for constructively revising this manuscript. This study was funded by projects CGL2012-30759, CGL2015-65055-P and PGC2018-095704-B-100 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. R.G.L. was funded by a FPI grant (BES-2013-065274). J.M.P. was partially supported by a 2017 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation. The Foundation accepts no responsibility for the opinions, statements and contents included in the project and/or the results thereof, which are entirely the responsibility of the authors. L.G. was supported by a postdoctoral contract of project P11-RNM-7038 from the Junta de Andalucía and by a Marie Curie Fellowship of the European Commission (grant number 747729, “EcoEvoClim”). J.Y. was supported by the State Scholarship Found from the China Scholarship Council.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s).
Copyright:
Copyright 2019 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/12/1
Y1 - 2019/12/1
N2 - Plasmodium transmission success depends upon the trade-off between the use of host resources to favour parasite reproduction and the negative effects on host health, which can be mediated by infection intensity. Despite its potential influence on parasite dynamics, the effects of infection intensity on both, birds and vectors, and on Plasmodium transmission success are still poorly understood. Here, we experimentally reduced the Plasmodium load in naturally infected wild house sparrows with the antimalarial primaquine to assess the effects of intensity of infection in the vertebrate hosts on Plasmodium transmission to and by mosquitoes. We monitored the survival of Culex pipiens mosquitoes throughout the development of the parasite and the infection status of the mosquitoes by analysing the head-thorax and saliva at 13 days post-exposure to birds. The proportion of mosquitoes infected by Plasmodium and the presence of Plasmodium in saliva were not associated with the medication treatment of birds. However, the experimental treatment affected vector survival with mosquitoes fed on medicated birds showing a higher survival rate than those fed on control individuals. These results provide strong experimental evidence of the impact of parasite load of vertebrate hosts on the survival probability of malaria vectors.
AB - Plasmodium transmission success depends upon the trade-off between the use of host resources to favour parasite reproduction and the negative effects on host health, which can be mediated by infection intensity. Despite its potential influence on parasite dynamics, the effects of infection intensity on both, birds and vectors, and on Plasmodium transmission success are still poorly understood. Here, we experimentally reduced the Plasmodium load in naturally infected wild house sparrows with the antimalarial primaquine to assess the effects of intensity of infection in the vertebrate hosts on Plasmodium transmission to and by mosquitoes. We monitored the survival of Culex pipiens mosquitoes throughout the development of the parasite and the infection status of the mosquitoes by analysing the head-thorax and saliva at 13 days post-exposure to birds. The proportion of mosquitoes infected by Plasmodium and the presence of Plasmodium in saliva were not associated with the medication treatment of birds. However, the experimental treatment affected vector survival with mosquitoes fed on medicated birds showing a higher survival rate than those fed on control individuals. These results provide strong experimental evidence of the impact of parasite load of vertebrate hosts on the survival probability of malaria vectors.
KW - INHS
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U2 - 10.1038/s41598-019-45143-w
DO - 10.1038/s41598-019-45143-w
M3 - Article
C2 - 31217438
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 9
JO - Scientific reports
JF - Scientific reports
IS - 1
M1 - 8782
ER -