Biological invasions and host–parasite coevolution: different coevolutionary trajectories along separate parasite invasion fronts

•Biological invasions are ideal to study host–parasite coevolution in nature.•The invasion history of Mytilicola intestinalis represents a temporal sympatry gradient.•We studied cross-infections that combined allopatric, sympatric and naïve hosts and parasites.•Hosts and parasites evolved pre- and p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Zoology (Jena) 2016-08, Vol.119 (4), p.366-374
Main Authors: Feis, Marieke E., Goedknegt, M. Anouk, Thieltges, David W., Buschbaum, Christian, Wegner, K. Mathias
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Biological Evolution
Copepoda - genetics
Copepoda - physiology
Host-Parasite Interactions - genetics
Host–parasite interactions
Humans
Infectivity/resistance
Local adaptation
Mytilus edulis - genetics
Mytilus edulis - parasitology
Parasitic copepod
Virulence/tolerance
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Summary:•Biological invasions are ideal to study host–parasite coevolution in nature.•The invasion history of Mytilicola intestinalis represents a temporal sympatry gradient.•We studied cross-infections that combined allopatric, sympatric and naïve hosts and parasites.•Hosts and parasites evolved pre- and post-infection traits differently.•Invasion routes were characterised by different evolutionary trajectories. Host–parasite coevolution has rarely been observed in natural systems. Its study often relies on microparasitic infections introducing a potential bias in the estimation of the evolutionary change of host and parasite traits. Using biological invasions as a tool to study host–parasite coevolution in nature can overcome these biases. We demonstrate this with a cross-infection experiment in the invasive macroparasite Mytilicola intestinalis and its bivalve host, the blue mussel Mytilus edulis. The invasion history of the parasite is well known for the southeastern North Sea and is characterised by two separate invasion fronts that reached opposite ends of the Wadden Sea (i.e. Texel, The Netherlands and Sylt, Germany) in a similar time frame. The species’ natural history thus makes this invasion an ideal natural experiment to study host–parasite coevolution in nature. We infected hosts from Texel, Sylt and Kiel (Baltic Sea, where the parasite is absent) with parasites from Texel and Sylt, to form sympatric, allopatric and naïve infestation combinations, respectively. We measured infection rate, host condition and parasite growth to show that sympatric host–parasite combinations diverged in terms of pre- and post-infection traits within
ISSN:0944-2006
1873-2720
DOI:10.1016/j.zool.2016.05.012