ArticleOecologia2012
Is there sex-biased resistance and tolerance in Mediterranean wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) populations facing multiple helminth infections?
Article in Oecologia, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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
16 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The evolution of monogamy is associated with reversals from male to female bias in the survival cost of parasitism.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Pooled it
- Macroimmunology: The drivers and consequences of spatial patterns in wildlife immune defence.The Journal of animal ecology · 2020Pooled it
- Ecological Analysis of the Helminth Community and Its Relationship with the Physiological State in the Montane Water Vole,Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Sex-the most underappreciated variable in research: insights from helminth-infected hosts.Veterinary research · 2022Review
- Host-Parasite Relationship-Nematode Communities in Populations of Small Mammals.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Ecological Analysis of the Helminth Community ofAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Long-term trends in helminth infections of wood mice (Parasitology · 2021Article
- The Immune and Non-Immune Pathways That Drive Chronic Gastrointestinal Helminth Burdens in the Wild.Frontiers in immunology · 2018Article
- Relationships between host body condition and immunocompetence, not host sex, best predict parasite burden in a bat-helminth system.Parasitology research · 2016Article
- Ectoparasites and fitness of female Columbian ground squirrels.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2015Article
- Sex-specific effects of parasitism on survival and reproduction of a rodent host in a subtropical montane region.Oecologia · 2015Article
- Female host sex-biased parasitism with the rodent stomach nematode Mastophorus muris in wild bank voles (Myodes glareolus).Parasitology research · 2015Article
- Variable effects of host characteristics on species richness of flea infracommunities in rodents from three continents.Parasitology research · 2014Article
- Sex-biased parasitism is not universal: evidence from rodent-flea associations from three biomes.Oecologia · 2013Article
- Associations between innate immune function and ectoparasites in wild rodent hosts.Parasitology research · 2013Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sex-biased parasitism is rarely investigated in relation to host tolerance and resistance, which are two defense strategies hosts can adopt when challenged by parasites. Health or fitness deteriorations in less tolerant individuals with increasing parasite burden would be faster than those in more tolerant ones. Hence, the body condition and reproductive potential of an infected individual host can be considered proxies for tolerance to parasitism. We studied Mediterranean populations of the wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) and its helminth parasites. We assessed their resistance using the phytohemagglutinin test and spleen size, and their tolerance using body condition in males and females and testes mass in males. In order to avoid spurious correlations, we took into account the phylogeographic structure of the Mediterranean wood mouse populations. We used a mixed model adapted from the animal model used in quantitative genetics. While helminth infection did not differ between the two sexes, females and males differed in their measured defenses. Females seem to invest more in immune defense with increasing risk of parasite diversity, but also appear to be potentially more tolerant of parasitic diversity. These results suggest the existence of sexual differences in resistance and tolerance, and that measurements of parasitic loads alone could be insufficient to detect any underlying sexual differences in the two strategies that have evolved in response to multiple parasitic attacks.
Indexed as
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22430373What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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