scholarly journals How Does Circadian Rhythm Shape Host-Parasite Associations? A Comparative Study on Infection Patterns in Diurnal and Nocturnal Raptors

Diversity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 338
Author(s):  
Kai Gao ◽  
Bing Zhou ◽  
Li-Xing Yang ◽  
Lu Dong ◽  
Xi Huang ◽  
...  

Infection patterns of parasites, including their prevalence, diversity and host specificity, can be impacted by many biological and environmental factors, but no study has focused on the circadian rhythms of vertebrate hosts, which may affect susceptibilities and encounter rates between hosts and vectors and further shape host-parasite associations. In this study, we focused on avian haemosporidians, a classical model in studies of host-parasite associations, and investigated the infection patterns in rescued raptors brought to the Beijing Raptor Rescue Center during 2007–2020. We first assessed the association between prevalence and host biotic traits; haemosporidian prevalence was higher in the nocturnal raptors than in the diurnal raptors, and the prevalence of Haemoproteus and Leucocytozoon in the nocturnal raptors was significantly higher than that in the diurnal raptors. Furthermore, we analysed the phylogenetic relationship and host-parasite network-level differences of haemosporidian parasites in diurnal and nocturnal raptors, and demonstrated that the lineages infecting the diurnal and nocturnal raptors were not clearly separated, but the nocturnal lifestyle led to a more specialized host-parasite network structure. These variations in host-parasite associations may be driven by different susceptibilities of the hosts and the diversity or abundance of vectors during the day and night. Our study provides new insight into host-parasite associations shaped by circadian rhythm and calls for more studies on the underlying mechanisms of parasite infection.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luz Garcia-Longoria ◽  
Jaime Muriel ◽  
Sergio Magallanes ◽  
Zaira Hellen Villa-Galarce ◽  
Leonila Ricopa ◽  
...  

Abstract Characterizing the diversity and structure of host-parasite communities is crucial to understanding their eco-evolutionary dynamics. Malaria and related haemosporidian parasites are responsible for fitness loss and mortality in bird species worldwide. However, despite exhibiting the greatest ornithological biodiversity, avian haemosporidians from Neotropical regions are quite unexplored. Here, we analyse the genetic diversity of bird haemosporidian parasites (Plasmodium and Haemoproteus) in 1,336 individuals belonging to 206 bird species to explore for differences in diversity of parasite lineages and bird species across five well-differentiated Peruvian ecoregions. We detected 70 different haemosporidian lineages infecting 74 bird species. We showed that 25 out of the 70 haplotypes had not been previously recorded. Moreover, we also identified 81 new host – parasite interactions representing new host records for these haemosporidian parasites. Our outcomes revealed that the effective diversity (as well as the richness, abundance, and Shannon-Weaver index) for both birds and parasite lineages was higher in Amazon basin ecoregions. Furthermore, we also showed that ecoregions with greater diversity of bird species also had high parasite richness, hence suggesting that host community is crucial in explaining parasite richness. Generalist parasites were found in ecoregions with lower bird diversity, implying that the abundance and richness of hosts may shape the exploitation strategy followed by haemosporidian parasites. These outcomes reveal that Neotropical region is a major reservoir of unidentified haemosporidian lineages. Further studies analysing host distribution and specificity of these parasites in the tropics will provide important knowledge about phylogenetic relationships, phylogeography, and patterns of evolution and distribution of haemosporidian parasites.


2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aneliya Bobeva ◽  
Pavel Zehtindjiev ◽  
Staffan Bensch ◽  
Jana Radrova

AbstractThis study presents data from a molecular survey of the species of the genus Culicoides from the region of Kalimok Field Station (NE Bulgaria) and haemosporidian parasites occurring in them in order to investigate the host-parasite specificity of haemosporidians to their dipteran vectors. The identification of Culicoides spp. was carried out by morphological and molecular-genetic methods. We collected and analysed 230 individuals of the genus Culicoides. Nine species were found. Eight species were identified morphologically; Culicoides obsoletus, C. riethi, C. newsteadi, C. circumscriptus, C. festivipennis, C. punctatus, C. pictipennis and C. puncticollis. The ninth species might be classified as either of C. nubeculosus or C. riethi and its identification needs additional investigations. The total prevalence of Haemoproteus in the examined biting midges was 2.17%. Three individuals of C. pictipennis were infected with the Haemoproteus lineage TURDUS2 (prevalence 16.67%), a common parasite of thrushes (Turdidae). Two individuals of C. circumscriptus contained Haemoproteus lineages (prevalence 2.78%); these were the lineage HAWF2 (previously reported from Coccothraustes coccothraustes) and a new lineage CULCIR1 not previously reported in the literature.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela de Angeli Dutra ◽  
Alan Fecchio ◽  
Erika Martins Braga ◽  
Robert Poulin

Migration can modify interaction dynamics between parasites and their hosts with migrant hosts able to disperse parasites and impact local community transmission. Thus, studying the relationships among migratory hosts and their parasites is fundamental to elucidate how migration shapes host-parasite interactions. Avian haemosporidian parasites are some of the most prevalent, diverse, and important wildlife parasites, and are also widely used as models in ecological and evolutionary research. Here, we contrast parasite taxonomic composition, network centrality and partner fidelity among resident and non-resident hosts using avian haemosporidians as study model. In order to evaluate parasite taxonomic composition, we performed permutational multivariate analyses of variance to quantify dissimilarity in haemosporidian lineages infecting different host migratory categories. Additionally, we ran multilevel Bayesian models to assess the role of migration in determining centrality and partner fidelity in host-parasite networks of avian hosts and their respective haemosporidian parasites. We observed similar parasite taxonomic composition and partner fidelity among resident and migratory hosts. Conversely, we demonstrate that migratory hosts play a more central role in host-parasite networks than residents. However, when evaluating partially and fully migratory hosts separately, we observed that only partially migratory species presented higher network centrality when compared to resident birds. Therefore, migration does not lead to differences in both parasite taxonomic composition and partner fidelity. However, migratory behavior is positively associated with network centrality, indicating migratory hosts play more important roles in shaping host-parasite interactions and influence local transmission.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose Roberto Rodrigues ◽  
Scott W Roy ◽  
Ravinder N Sehgal

Avian haemosporidian parasites can cause malaria-like symptoms in their hosts and have been implicated in the demise of some bird species. The newly described Matryoshka RNA viruses (MaRNAV1 and MaRNAV2) infect parasites that in turn infect their vertebrate hosts. MaRNAV2 was the first RNA virus discovered associated with parasites of the genus Leucocytozoon. By analyzing metatranscriptomes from the NCBI SRA database with local sequence alignment tools, we detected two novel RNA viruses; we describe them as MaRNAV3 associated with Leucocytozoon and MaRNAV4 associated with Parahaemoproteus. These had ~40-60% amino acid identity to the RNA-dependent RNA-polymerase (RdRp) of MaRNAV1 and 2, respectively. These findings lead us to hypothesize that MaRNAV_like viruses are widespread and tightly associated with the order Haemosporida since they have been described in human Plasmodium vivax, and now two genera of avian haemosporidians.


Metabolites ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 482
Author(s):  
Jae-Kwon Jo ◽  
Seung-Ho Seo ◽  
Seong-Eun Park ◽  
Hyun-Woo Kim ◽  
Eun-Ju Kim ◽  
...  

Obesity can be caused by microbes producing metabolites; it is thus important to determine the correlation between gut microbes and metabolites. This study aimed to identify gut microbiota-metabolomic signatures that change with a high-fat diet and understand the underlying mechanisms. To investigate the profiles of the gut microbiota and metabolites that changed after a 60% fat diet for 8 weeks, 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS)-based metabolomic analyses were performed. Mice belonging to the HFD group showed a significant decrease in the relative abundance of Bacteroidetes but an increase in the relative abundance of Firmicutes compared to the control group. The relative abundance of Firmicutes, such as Lactococcus, Blautia, Lachnoclostridium, Oscillibacter, Ruminiclostridium, Harryflintia, Lactobacillus, Oscillospira, and Erysipelatoclostridium, was significantly higher in the HFD group than in the control group. The increased relative abundance of Firmicutes in the HFD group was positively correlated with fecal ribose, hypoxanthine, fructose, glycolic acid, ornithine, serum inositol, tyrosine, and glycine. Metabolic pathways affected by a high fat diet on serum were involved in aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, glycine, serine and threonine metabolism, cysteine and methionine metabolism, glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism, and phenylalanine, tyrosine, and trypto-phan biosynthesis. This study provides insight into the dysbiosis of gut microbiota and metabolites altered by HFD and may help to understand the mechanisms underlying obesity mediated by gut microbiota.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 205
Author(s):  
Lúcio Lara Santos ◽  
Júlio Santos ◽  
Maria João Gouveia ◽  
Carina Bernardo ◽  
Carlos Lopes ◽  
...  

Schistosomiasis is the most important helminthiasis worldwide in terms of morbidity and mortality. Most of the infections occurs in Africa, which about two thirds are caused by Schistosoma haematobium. The infection with S. haematobium is considered carcinogenic leading to squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and urothelial carcinoma of the urinary bladder. Additionally, it is responsible for female genital schistosomiasis leading to infertility and higher risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) transmission. Remarkably, a recent outbreak in Corsica (France) drew attention to its potential re-mergence in Southern Europe. Thus far, little is known related to host-parasite interactions that trigger carcinogenesis. However, recent studies have opened new avenues to understand mechanisms on how the parasite infection can lead cancer and other associated pathologies. Here, we present a historical perspective of schistosomiasis, and review the infection-associated pathologies and studies on host–parasite interactions that unveil tentative mechanisms underlying schistosomiasis-associated carcinogenesis.


Author(s):  
Elliott S. Chiu ◽  
Sue VandeWoude

Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) serve as markers of ancient viral infections and provide invaluable insight into host and viral evolution. ERVs have been exapted to assist in performing basic biological functions, including placentation, immune modulation, and oncogenesis. A subset of ERVs share high nucleotide similarity to circulating horizontally transmitted exogenous retrovirus (XRV) progenitors. In these cases, ERV–XRV interactions have been documented and include ( a) recombination to result in ERV–XRV chimeras, ( b) ERV induction of immune self-tolerance to XRV antigens, ( c) ERV antigen interference with XRV receptor binding, and ( d) interactions resulting in both enhancement and restriction of XRV infections. Whereas the mechanisms governing recombination and immune self-tolerance have been partially determined, enhancement and restriction of XRV infection are virus specific and only partially understood. This review summarizes interactions between six unique ERV–XRV pairs, highlighting important ERV biological functions and potential evolutionary histories in vertebrate hosts. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, Volume 9 is February 16, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


1979 ◽  
Vol 16 (01) ◽  
pp. 198-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Billard ◽  
H. Lacayo ◽  
N. A. Langberg

Classical epidemic models have invariably proved to be mathematically intractable. By considering the distribution of the number of infectives in a simple epidemic process as a convolution of exponential waiting times, the solution to the classical model is obtained easily giving more insight into the underlying structure. The idea can be extended to other simple epidemic models.


2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (12) ◽  
pp. 1450161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Li ◽  
Zengrong Liu

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) interact with 3′untranslated region (UTR) elements of target genes to regulate mRNA stability or translation, and play a crucial role in regulating many different biological processes. bantam, a conserved miRNA, is involved in several functions, such as regulating Drosophila growth and circadian rhythm. Recently, it has been discovered that bantam plays a crucial role in the core circadian pacemaker. In this paper, based on experimental observations, a detailed dynamical model of bantam-regulated circadian clock system is developed to show the post-transcriptional behaviors in the modulation of Drosophila circadian rhythm, in which the regulation of bantam is incorporated into a classical model. The dynamical behaviors of the model are consistent with the experimental observations, which shows that bantam is an important regulator of Drosophila circadian rhythm. The sensitivity analysis of parameters demonstrates that with the regulation of bantam the system is more sensitive to perturbations, indicating that bantam regulation makes it easier for the organism to modulate its period against the environmental perturbations. The effectiveness in rescuing locomotor activity rhythms of mutated flies shows that bantam is necessary for strong and sustained rhythms. In addition, the biological mechanisms of bantam regulation are analyzed, which may help us more clearly understand Drosophila circadian rhythm regulated by other miRNAs.


Author(s):  
Britta Biedermann ◽  
Nora Fieder ◽  
Karen Smith-Lock

This chapter provides an overview of the evidence on grammatical number processing taken from cognitive neuropsychology, including developmental delays and impairments of language (e.g. developmental language disorder, and Williams syndrome) and aphasia, an acquired language impairment after brain injury. These types of language impairment can give insight into the functional architecture of nominal number processing by looking at error patterns that arise in each of the aforementioned populations. By classifying observed responses in language production tasks into non-number and number errors, we are able to reveal underlying mechanisms of syntactic rules and their representations when they develop, but also learn about processes and representation of number when this information breaks down.


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