Effects of maternal and grandmaternal flea infestation on offspring quality and quantity in a desert rodent: evidence for parasite-mediated transgenerational phenotypic plasticity.

Effects of maternal and grandmaternal flea infestation on offspring quality and quantity in a desert rodent: evidence for parasite-mediated transgenerational phenotypic plasticity. Int J Parasitol. 2019 Apr 12;: Authors: Warburton EM, Khokhlova IS, van der Mescht L, Downs CJ, Dlugosz EM, Krasnov BR Abstract Parasites can cause a broad range of sublethal fitness effects across a wide variety of host taxa. However, a host's efforts to compensate for possible parasite-induced fitness effects are less well-known. Parental effects may beneficially alter the offspring phenotype if parental environments sufficiently predict the offspring environment. Parasitism is a common stressor across generations; therefore, parental infestation could reliably predict the likelihood of infestation for offspring. However, little is known about relationships between parasitism and transgenerational phenotypic plasticity. Thus, we investigated how maternal and grandmaternal infestation with fleas (Xenopsylla ramesis) affected offspring quality and quantity in a desert rodent (Meriones crassus). We used a fully-crossed design with control and infested treatments to examine litter size, pup body mass at birth, and pup mass gain before weaning for combinations of maternal and grandmaternal infestation status. No effect of treatment on litter size or pup body mass at birth was found. However, maternal and grandmaternal infestation status significantly affected...
Source: International Journal for Parasitology - Category: Parasitology Authors: Tags: Int J Parasitol Source Type: research