Stoichiometry and infectious disease: Linking chemical elements and parasitic interactions

Abstract

A growing body of work has shown that parasites’ growth and reproduction can be influenced by the food quality available to their hosts. Consumers, including parasites, require a balanced diet to grow. Unlike many consumers, however, parasites are beholden to the diet quality presented to them by their host, which is in turn a function of the host’s own diet. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the relationship between parasite reproduction and host diet quality is subject to a threshold elemental ratio: that there is a balanced host diet that confers maximum growth to the parasite. We present results from a laboratory experiment where we fed a wide range of experimental diets to Tubifex tubifex infected with Myxobolus cerebralis and observed a hump-shaped relationship between M. cerebralis spore production and T. tubifex diet stoichiometry, indicative of a threshold elemental ratio. Further we compared these results to M. cerebralis spore production by wild T. tubifex, and found that spore production in the wild T. tubifex was characterized by a linear relationship with T. tubifex diet. Together, our results show 13 that host diet stoichiometry can be an important influence on parasite reproduction, but that the relationship between them is complex and sometimes nonlinear. 14

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