ArticleBiology letters2010
Sickness behaviour acting as an evolutionary trap? Male house finches preferentially feed near diseased conspecifics.
Article in Biology letters, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 97 citations in OpenAlex.
- Paying Upfront: Successful Initial Infections Protect Against Severe Future Infections.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- In sickness and in health: group-living augments behavioural responses to food and predation risk for sick house finches (Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- A high-lipid diet leads to greater pathology and lower tolerance during infection.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Article
- Associating with kin selects for disease resistance and against tolerance.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Plants buffer some of the effects of a pair of cadmium-exposed zebrafish on the un-exposed majority.Environmental toxicology and pharmacology · 2024Article
- Sickness behaviour and the effect of sex, age, and immune status on individual behavioural variation in Tenebrio molitor.PloS one · 2024Article
- Varying conjunctival immune response adaptations of house finch populations to a rapidly evolving bacterial pathogen.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Article
- A Pair of Cadmium-exposed Zebrafish Affect Boldness and Landmark use in the Un-exposed Majority.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Let's stick together: Infection enhances preferences for social grouping in a songbird species.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Bat behavioral immune responses in social contexts: current knowledge and future directions.Frontiers in immunology · 2023Review
- High virulence is associated with pathogen spreadability in a songbird-bacterial system.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Hinfluences severe disease-mediated population declines in two of the most common garden bird species in Great Britain.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Fevers and the social costs of acute infection in wild vervet monkeys.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- Site Fidelity is Associated with Food Provisioning and Salmonella in an Urban Wading Bird.EcoHealth · 2021Article
- Isotopic niche variation in Tasmanian devilsEcology and evolution · 2021Article
- Perception of infection: disease-related social cues influence immunity in songbirds.Biology letters · 2021Article
- Mobility and infectiousness in the spatial spread of an emerging fungal pathogen.The Journal of animal ecology · 2021Article
- Bidirectional interactions between host social behaviour and parasites arise through ecological and evolutionary processes.Parasitology · 2021Article
- Evolution of behavioural resistance in host-pathogen systems.Biology letters · 2020Article
- Behavioural ecology and infectious disease: implications for conservation of biodiversity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Host behaviour towards infectious conspecifics is a crucial yet overlooked component of pathogen dynamics. Selection is expected to favour individuals who can recognize and avoid infected conspecifics in order to reduce their own risk of infection. However, evidence is scarce and limited to species employing chemical cues. Here, we experimentally examine whether healthy captive house finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) preferentially forage near a same-sex, healthy conspecific versus one infected with the directly transmissible pathogen Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG), which causes lethargy and visible conjunctivitis. Interestingly, male house finches strongly preferred feeding near diseased conspecifics, while females showed no preference. This sex difference appeared to be the result of lower aggression rates in diseased males, but not in females. The reduced aggression of diseased males may act as an 'evolutionary trap' by presenting a historically beneficial behavioural cue in the context of a new environment, which now includes a recently emerged, potentially fatal pathogen. Since MG can be directly transmitted during feeding, healthy males may inadvertently increase their risk of contracting MG. This behaviour is likely to significantly contribute to the continued persistence of MG epidemics in wild populations.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.