The cost of a bodyguard - PubMed (original) (raw)

The cost of a bodyguard

Fanny Maure et al. Biol Lett. 2011.

Abstract

Host manipulation by parasites not only captures the imagination but has important epidemiological implications. The conventional view is that parasites face a trade-off between the benefits of host manipulation and their costs to fitness-related traits, such as longevity and fecundity. However, this trade-off hypothesis remains to be tested. Dinocampus coccinellae is a common parasitic wasp of the spotted lady beetle Coleomegilla maculata. Females deposit a single egg in the haemocoel of the host, and during larval development the parasitoid feeds on host tissues. At the prepupal stage, the parasitoid egresses from its host by forcing its way through the coccinellid's abdominal segments and begins spinning a cocoon between the ladybird's legs. Remarkably, D. coccinellae does not kill its host during its development, an atypical feature for parasitoids. We first showed under laboratory conditions that parasitoid cocoons that were attended by a living and manipulated ladybird suffered less predation than did cocoons alone or cocoons under dead ladybirds. We then demonstrated that the length of the manipulation period is negatively correlated with parasitoid fecundity but not with longevity. In addition to documenting an original case of bodyguard manipulation, our study provides the first evidence of a cost required for manipulating host behaviour.

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Figures

Figure 1.

Figure 1.

The parasitoid Dinocampus coccinellae and its host the ladybird Coleomegilla maculata. (a) Parasitoid larva egressing from the ladybird (photograph by M. Bélanger Morin). (b) Ladybird attending a parasitoid cocoon (photograph by F. Maure).

Figure 2.

Figure 2.

(a) Percentage of Dinocampus coccinellae cocoons eaten by larval green lacewing, Chrysoperla carnea, when parasitoid cocoons were exposed alone, covered by a dead ladybird (Coleomegilla maculata), or attended by a living ladybird. Probabilities were obtained using the Fisher exact test, ***p < 0.0001. Numbers refer to sample sizes. (b) Relationship between the survivorship of attending Coleomegilla maculata ladybirds and the number of mature eggs at emergence of Dinocampus coccinellae parasitoids. Residuals correspond to fecundity data corrected by the size and the pupal development time of the parasitoid, the sex and the size of the ladybird. _r_2 = 0.219 and p = 0.0137.

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