<i>Caenorhabditis</i>nematodes colonize ephemeral resource patches in neotropical forests

Sloat, Solomon A.; Noble, Luke M.; Paaby, Annalise B.; Bernstein, Max R.; Chang, Audrey S.; Kaur, Taniya; Yuen, John G; Tintori, Sophia C.; Jackson, Jacqueline L.; Martel, Arielle; Correa, José A.; Stevens, Lewis; Blaxter, Mark; Rockman, Matthew V.

doi:10.1101/2022.01.13.476254

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 64 publications

(76 reference statements)

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“…We chose to measure fitness through population expansion because of the ecology of C. elegans . In the wild, one to a few nematodes colonize a transient microbial resource, reproduce rapidly, predominantly via self‐fertilization, then disperse to a new patch (Félix & Braendle, 2010; Richaud et al, 2018; Sloat et al, 2022). These microbial resources are highly ephemeral, so demes that reach large population sizes quickly are expected to produce more migrants to colonize new patches.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet can alter the cost of resistance to a natural parasite in Caenorhabditis elegans

Jiranek

Gibson

2023

Ecology and Evolution

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Resistance to parasites confers a fitness advantage, yet hosts show substantial variation in resistance in natural populations. Evolutionary theory indicates that resistant and susceptible genotypes can coexist if resistance is costly, but there is mixed evidence that resistant individuals have lower fitness in the absence of parasites. One explanation for this discrepancy is that the cost of resistance varies with environmental context. We tested this hypothesis using Caenorhabditis elegans and its natural microsporidian parasite, Nematocida ironsii . We used multiple metrics to compare the fitness of two near‐isogenic host genotypes differing at regions associated with resistance to N. ironsii . To quantify the effect of the environment on the cost associated with these known resistance regions, we measured fitness on three microbial diets. We found that the cost of resistance varied with both diet and the measure of fitness. We detected no cost to resistance, irrespective of diet, when fitness was measured as fecundity. However, we detected a cost when fitness was measured in terms of population growth, and the magnitude of this cost varied with diet. These results provide a proof of concept that, by mediating the cost of resistance, environmental context may govern the rate and nature of resistance evolution in heterogeneous environments.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diet can alter the cost of resistance to a natural parasite in Caenorhabditis elegans

Jiranek

Gibson

2023

Ecology and Evolution

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“…Nevertheless, C. elegans nematodes did not coincide with these particular species more often than expected based on chance which underlines the opportunistic behaviour of C. elegans (Supplementary Table S4). Moreover, Caenorhabditis species are known to coexist together in some places (Félix & Duveau 2012;Schulenburg et al 2014;Sloat et al 2022).…”

Section: Nematode Community Network Of the Nematode C Elegans And Co-...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity-disease relationships in natural microscopic nematode communities

van Himbeeck,

Sowa,

Jarkass

et al. 2023

Preprint

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High host biodiversity can reduce parasite prevalence, a phenomenon widely studied in macroscopic organisms and termed the ‘dilution effect of disease’. Data from host-parasite dynamics in microbial communities is lacking but is essential to assess the stability of microbial communities under global change. Here, we study diversity-disease effects in wild nematode communities by profiting from the molecular tools available in the well-studied model nematodeCaenorhabditis elegans. Nanopore sequencing was used to characterize nematode community diversity and composition whereas parasites were identified using experimental assays based on fluorescent staining or fluorescent reporter strains. Our results indicate biotic stress is abundant in wild nematode communities. Dilution-disease effects were observed based on the presence of microsporidian parasites and by activation of the Intracellular Pathogen Response. Together, this provides the first demonstration of diversity-disease effects in microbial communities and establishes the use of nematode communities as model systems for disease dilution.

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“…In the recent article by Sloat et al (2022), the following sentence was missed in the Acknowledgments section.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Corrigendum

2022

Ecology and Evolution

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Caenorhabditisnematodes colonize ephemeral resource patches in neotropical forests

Cited by 3 publications

References 64 publications

Diet can alter the cost of resistance to a natural parasite in Caenorhabditis elegans

Diet can alter the cost of resistance to a natural parasite in Caenorhabditis elegans

Diversity-disease relationships in natural microscopic nematode communities

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