Horizontal and vertical transmission of a Nosema sp. (Microsporidia) from Lymantria dispar (L.) (Lepidoptera: Lymantriidae)

Vertical transmission and overwintering of microsporidia in the gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar

“…Novotny and Weiser (1993) reported that N. lymantriae was vertically transmitted to 65-70% of the progeny, however their study involved a different isolate. Our results were comparable to their data despite the fact that there is substantial variation in the effects of Nosema-group isolates that infect L. dispar (Goertz et al, 2004(Goertz et al, , 2007Novotny and Weiser, 1993).…”

Transovum Transmission of Trypanosomatid Cysts in the Milkweed Bug, Oncopeltus fasciatus

“…There are basically two forms of transmission of endoparasites among insects: vertical, when the parasite is transferred from the parent to its progeny, and horizontal, when the transfer occurs between two individuals, either host to host, or host to environment and then to host [20]–[22]. The vertical transmission is subdivided into two forms: transovarial and transovum, in which the parasites are present within the eggs or on the eggshells, respectively [20], [23], [24].…”

Quantifying horizontal transmission of Nosema lymantriae, a microsporidian pathogen of the gypsy moth, Lymantria dispar (Lep., Lymantriidae) in field cage studies

“…A secondary cycle results in the maturation of single, binucleate environmental spores in ''target tissues" such as silk glands, fat body tissues, and gonads (Maddox et al, 1999), as well as (in case of N. lymantriae) the Malpighian tubules (Pilarska et al, 2006). The infection of respective target tissues facilitates spore release either from living larvae through silk (Jeffords et al, 1987) and/or feces (Maddox et al, 1999;Goertz et al, 2007;Goertz and Hoch, 2008) and from cadavers, which are frequently laden with spores due to the infection of the fat body tissues. Effects of infection on host larvae (Goertz et al, 2004), competition with other species of microsporidia within hosts 2006) and host specificity (Solter et al, 1997(Solter et al, , 2000 have been well-studied for the L. dispar microsporidia.…”

“…However, our understanding of horizontal transmission is still incomplete, particularly in natural populations. Recent studies that dealt with aspects of horizontal transmission of L. dispar microsporidia in some detail (Pilarska et al, 2006;Goertz et al, 2007;Goertz and Hoch, 2008) were carried out under standardized laboratory conditions using relatively small arenas (diet cups) and meridic diet. Quantitative laboratory data on spore production and spore release from infected host larvae are available for N. lymantriae (Goertz and Hoch, 2008), however, it is not clear how these findings relate to the situation in the field with variable food quality and a more complex and ecologically relevant habitat.…”