ArticleEvolution; international journal of organic evolution2015
When parasites disagree: evidence for parasite-induced sabotage of host manipulation.
Article in Evolution; international journal of organic evolution, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 68 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Evolution and Ecology of Host Manipulation in Helminth Parasites: A Phylogenetic Meta-Analysis.Ecology letters · 2026Pooled it
- Concurrent infections byParasitology · 2026Article
- The Dominance of Coinfecting Parasites' Indirect Genetic Effects on Host Traits.The American naturalist · 2024Article
- Opposing life history strategies allow grass shrimp parasites to avoid a conflict of interest.Oecologia · 2024Article
- Adaptive host responses to infection can resemble parasitic manipulation.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- How cunning is the puppet-master? Cestode-infected fish appear generally fearless.Parasitology research · 2022Article
- Altered feeding behavior and immune competence in paper wasps: A case of parasite manipulation?PloS one · 2020Article
- Behavior out of control: Experimental evolution of resistance to host manipulation.Ecology and evolution · 2019Article
- Experimental evolution of parasitic host manipulation.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Parasite avoidance behaviours in aquatic environments.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2018Review
- Conflicts over host manipulation between different parasites and pathogens: Investigating the ecological and medical consequences.BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology · 2016Review
- Inter- and intraspecific conflicts between parasites over host manipulation.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2016Article
- Host manipulation in the face of environmental changes: Ecological consequences.International journal for parasitology. Parasites and wildlife · 2015Article
- An experimental conflict of interest between parasites reveals the mechanism of host manipulation.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
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 manipulation is a common parasite strategy to alter host behavior in a manner to enhance parasite fitness usually by increasing the parasite's transmission to the next host. In nature, hosts often harbor multiple parasites with agreeing or conflicting interests over host manipulation. Natural selection might drive such parasites to cooperation, compromise, or sabotage. Sabotage would occur if one parasite suppresses the manipulation of another. Experimental studies on the effect of multi-parasite interactions on host manipulation are scarce, clear experimental evidence for sabotage is elusive. We tested the effect of multiple infections on host manipulation using laboratory-bred copepods experimentally infected with the trophically transmitted tapeworm Schistocephalus solidus. This parasite is known to manipulate its host depending on its own developmental stage. Coinfecting parasites with the same aim enhance each other's manipulation but only after reaching infectivity. If the coinfecting parasites disagree over host manipulation, the infective parasite wins this conflict: the noninfective one has no effect. The winning (i.e., infective) parasite suppresses the manipulation of its noninfective competitor. This presents conclusive experimental evidence for both cooperation in and sabotage of host manipulation and hence a proof of principal that one parasite can alter and even neutralize manipulation by another.
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Registered trials
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.