The dynamics between limited-term and lifelong coinfecting bacterial parasites in wild rodent hosts [RESEARCH ARTICLE]

Anat Eidelman, Carmit Cohen, Alvaro Navarro-Castilla, Serina Filler, Ricardo Gutierrez, Enav Bar-Shira, Naama Shahar, Mario Garrido, Snir Halle, Yoav Romach, Isabel Barja, Severine Tasker, Shimon Harrus, Aharon Friedman, and Hadas Hawlena Interactions between coinfecting parasites1 may take various forms, either direct or indirect, facilitative or competitive, and may be mediated by either bottom-up or top-down mechanisms. While each form of interaction leads to different evolutionary and ecological outcomes, it is challenging to tease them apart throughout the infection period. To establish the first step towards a mechanistic understanding of the interactions between coinfecting limited-term bacterial parasites and lifelong bacterial parasites, we studied the coinfection ofBartonella sp. (limited-term) and Mycoplasma sp. (lifelong), which commonly co-occur in wild rodents. We infected Bartonella and Mycoplasma-free rodents with each species, and simultaneously with both, and quantified the infection dynamics and host responses. Bartonella benefited from the interaction; its infection load decreased more slowly in coinfected rodents than in rodents infected with Bartonella alone. There were no indications for bottom-up effects, but coinfected rodents experienced various changes, depending on the infection stage, in their body mass, stress levels, and activity pattern, which may further affect bacterial replication and transmission. Interestingly, the infection dynamics and c...

Source: Journal of Experimental Biology - July 7, 2019 Category: Biology Authors: Eidelman, A., Cohen, C., Navarro-Castilla, A., Filler, S., Gutierrez, R., Bar-Shira, E., Shahar, N., Garrido, M., Halle, S., Romach, Y., Barja, I., Tasker, S., Harrus, S., Friedman, A., Hawlena, H. Tags: RESEARCH ARTICLE Source Type: research