Gregory F Albery, Adam Z Hasik, Sean Morris, Alison Morris, Fiona Kenyon, David McBean, Josephine M Pemberton, Daniel H Nussey, Josh A Firth
{"title":"Divergent age-related changes in parasite infection occur independently of behaviour and demography in a wild ungulate.","authors":"Gregory F Albery, Adam Z Hasik, Sean Morris, Alison Morris, Fiona Kenyon, David McBean, Josephine M Pemberton, Daniel H Nussey, Josh A Firth","doi":"10.1098/rstb.2023.0508","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>As animals age, they exhibit a suite of phenotypic changes, often including reductions in movement and social behaviour ('behavioural ageing'). By altering an individual's exposure to parasites, behavioural ageing may influence infection status trajectories over the lifespan. However, these processes could be confounded by age-related changes in other phenotypic traits, or by selective disappearance of certain individuals owing to parasite-induced mortality. Here, we uncover contrasting age-related patterns of infection across three helminth parasites in wild adult female red deer (<i>Cervus elaphus</i>). Counts of strongyle nematodes (order: Strongylida) increased with age, while counts of liver fluke (<i>Fasciola hepatica</i>) and tissue worm (<i>Elaphostrongylus cervi</i>) decreased, and lungworm (<i>Dictyocaulus</i>) counts did not change. These relationships could not be explained by socio-spatial behaviours, spatial structuring, or selective disappearance, suggesting behavioural ageing is unlikely to be responsible for driving age trends. Instead, social connectedness and strongyle infection were positively correlated, such that direct age-infection trends were directly contrasted with the effects implied by previously documented behavioural ageing. This suggests that behavioural ageing may reduce parasite exposure, potentially countering other age-related changes. These findings demonstrate that different parasites can show contrasting age trajectories depending on diverse intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and that behaviour's role in these processes is likely to be complex and multidirectional.This article is part of the discussion meeting issue 'Understanding age and society using natural populations'.</p>","PeriodicalId":19872,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11513643/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2023.0508","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/10/28 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
As animals age, they exhibit a suite of phenotypic changes, often including reductions in movement and social behaviour ('behavioural ageing'). By altering an individual's exposure to parasites, behavioural ageing may influence infection status trajectories over the lifespan. However, these processes could be confounded by age-related changes in other phenotypic traits, or by selective disappearance of certain individuals owing to parasite-induced mortality. Here, we uncover contrasting age-related patterns of infection across three helminth parasites in wild adult female red deer (Cervus elaphus). Counts of strongyle nematodes (order: Strongylida) increased with age, while counts of liver fluke (Fasciola hepatica) and tissue worm (Elaphostrongylus cervi) decreased, and lungworm (Dictyocaulus) counts did not change. These relationships could not be explained by socio-spatial behaviours, spatial structuring, or selective disappearance, suggesting behavioural ageing is unlikely to be responsible for driving age trends. Instead, social connectedness and strongyle infection were positively correlated, such that direct age-infection trends were directly contrasted with the effects implied by previously documented behavioural ageing. This suggests that behavioural ageing may reduce parasite exposure, potentially countering other age-related changes. These findings demonstrate that different parasites can show contrasting age trajectories depending on diverse intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and that behaviour's role in these processes is likely to be complex and multidirectional.This article is part of the discussion meeting issue 'Understanding age and society using natural populations'.
期刊介绍:
The journal publishes topics across the life sciences. As long as the core subject lies within the biological sciences, some issues may also include content crossing into other areas such as the physical sciences, social sciences, biophysics, policy, economics etc. Issues generally sit within four broad areas (although many issues sit across these areas):
Organismal, environmental and evolutionary biology
Neuroscience and cognition
Cellular, molecular and developmental biology
Health and disease.