Fitness estimates from experimental infections predict the long-term strain structure of a vector-borne pathogen in the field.
- Durand J Laboratory of Ecology and Evolution of Parasites, Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
- Jacquet M Laboratory of Ecology and Evolution of Parasites, Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
- Rais O Laboratory of Eco-Epidemiology of Parasites, Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
- Gern L Laboratory of Eco-Epidemiology of Parasites, Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
- Voordouw MJ Laboratory of Ecology and Evolution of Parasites, Institute of Biology, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. maarten.voordouw@unine.ch.
- 2017-05-14
Published in:
- Scientific reports. - 2017
English
The populations of many pathogen species consist of a collection of common and rare strains but the factors underlying this strain-specific variation in frequency are often unknown. Understanding frequency variation among strains is particularly challenging for vector-borne pathogens where the strain-specific fitness depends on the performance in both the vertebrate host and the arthropod vector. Two sympatric multiple-strain tick-borne pathogens, Borrelia afzelii and B. garinii, that use the same tick vector, Ixodes ricinus, but different vertebrate hosts were studied. 454-sequencing of the polymorphic ospC gene was used to characterize the community of Borrelia strains in a local population of I. ricinus ticks over a period of 11 years. Estimates of the reproduction number (R0), a measure of fitness, were obtained for six strains of B. afzelii from a previous laboratory study. There was substantial variation in prevalence among strains and some strains were consistently common whereas other strains were consistently rare. In B. afzelii, the strain-specific estimates of R0 in laboratory mice explained over 70% of the variation in the prevalences of the strains in our local population of ticks. Our study shows that laboratory estimates of fitness can predict the community structure of multiple-strain pathogens in the field.
- Language
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- English
- Open access status
- gold
- Identifiers
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- DOI 10.1038/s41598-017-01821-1
- PMID 28500292
- Persistent URL
- https://sonar.ch/global/documents/749
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