Effect of Nutrient Levels andAscogregarina taiwanensis(Apicomplexa: Lecudinidae) Infections on the Vector Competence ofAedes albopictus(Diptera: Culicidae) forDirofilaria immitis(Filarioidea: Onchocercidae)

Comiskey, Nora; Lowrie, Robert C.; Wesson, Dawn M.

doi:10.1093/jmedent/36.1.55

Cited by 24 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…This latter result is curious because previous studies have shown that infection by A. taiwanensis increases Ae. albopictus development time (Comiskey et al 1999b;M. Tseng, unpublished data).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Sex–specific response of a mosquito to parasites and crowding

Tseng

2004

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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Host-parasite interactions are signif icantly influenced by the sex of the host and the environment in which the host is found. Sex-specif ic responses to parasite infection, however, may change according to the host environment. I examine the combined effect of parasite infection and crowding on males and females of the mosquito Aedes albopictus. At a high larval density, infected males experienced a greater relative reduction in body size than did infected females, whereas the pattern was reversed at low density. This experiment demonstrates the importance of the environment on sex-specif ic responses to parasites and contributes to a growing body of work examining sources of variation in hostparasite interactions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Sex–specific response of a mosquito to parasites and crowding

Tseng

2004

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

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“…An example from Aedes albopictus mosquitoes-carriers of several human viruses, including dengue and Cache Valley fever-illustrates the difficulty in making broad generalizations. Comiskey et al (1999) showed that low-nutrient habitats led to significantly higher mosquito mortality from ascogregarine parasite infections, but that in high-nutrient conditions, parasitism reduced female mosquito reproductive output. Thus, changing nutrient availability affects Aedes survival and fitness in complex ways involving parasitism of the mosquito, which in turn will alter the risk to hosts of contracting PIDs vectored by Aedes albopictus.…”

Section: Disease and The Changing Global Nitrogen Cyclementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a rare direct test, higher nutrient levels enhanced survival of larval Culex mosquitoes involved in West Nile virus transmission and increased odds of oviposition by adult females . Other studies have addressed (but not manipulated) the relationship between nutrients and the vector itself in field conditions, and from there drew implications about disease responses (Comiskey et al, 1999;Gimnig et al, 2002;Pope et al, 2005). Many more studies have addressed the positive relationship between land use change and mosquito-vectored diseases (i.e., Afrane et al, 2005;Munga et al, 2006;Norris, 2004;Tadei et al, 1998;Vasconcelos et al, 1997), some of which postulate that increased nutrients following land conversion may support greater larval vector development.…”

Section: Insect-vectored Diseasementioning

confidence: 99%

Parasitic and Infectious Disease Responses to Changing Global Nutrient Cycles

2007

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Parasitic and infectious diseases (PIDs) are a significant threat to human, livestock, and wildlife health and are changing dramatically in the face of human-induced environmental changes such as those in climate and land use. In this article we explore the little-studied but potentially important response of PIDs to another major environmental change, that in the global nutrient cycles. Humans have now altered the nitrogen (N) cycle to an astonishing degree, and those changes are causing a remarkable diversity of environmental and ecological responses. Since most PIDs are strongly regulated by ecological interactions, changes in nutrients are likely to affect their dynamics in a diversity of environments. We show that while direct tests of the links between nutrients and disease are rare, there is mounting evidence that higher nutrient levels frequently lead to an increased risk of disease. This trend occurs across multiple pathogen types, including helminths, insectvectored diseases, myxozoa, and bacterial and fungal diseases. The mechanistic responses to increased nutrients are often complex and frequently involve indirect responses that are regulated by intermediate or vector hosts involved in disease transmission. We also show that rapid changes in the N cycle of tropical regions combined with the high diversity of human PIDs in these regions will markedly increase the potential for N to alter the dynamics of disease. Finally, we stress that progress on understanding the effects of nutrients on disease ecology requires a sustained effort to conduct manipulative experiments that can reveal underlying mechanisms on a species-specific basis.

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“…Despite this main interest on Ascogregarina parasites, some other aspects of veterinary and medical concern were studied; e.g., the eVect of gregarine infection on DiroWlaria immitis transmission (Beier, 1983;Comiskey et al, 1999b;Nayar and Knight, 1999), as well as on the maintenance of Chikungunya virus in nature (Moury et al, 2003). Gregarine infection in a non-natural mosquito host could be harmful (e.g., A. taiwanensis infecting Ae.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%