Are fish immune systems really affected by parasites? An immunoecological study of common carp (Cyprinus carpio).
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2011 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Parasites and Vectors |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1756-3305-4-120 |
| Field | Immunology |
| Keywords | Cyprinus carpio; immunity; parasites |
| Description | The basic function of the immune system is to protect an organism against infection in order to minimize the fitness costs of being infected. According to life-history theory, energy resources are in a trade-off between the costly demands of immunity and other physiological demands. In this study, we investigated the potential associations between the physiology and immunocompetence of common carp (Cyprinus carpio) collected during five different periods of a given year. We analyzed which of two factors, seasonality or parasitism, had the strongest impact on changes in fish physiology and immunity. We found that seasonal changes play a key role in affecting the analyzed measurements of physiology, immunity and parasitism. The correlation analysis revealed the relationships between the measures of overall host physiology, immunity and parasite load when temporal variability effect was removed. We found that fish with a worse condition status were infected more by monogeneans, representing the most abundant parasite group. The high infection by cestodes seems to activate the phagocytes. Even if no direct trade-off between the measures of host immunity and physiology was confirmed when taking into account the seasonality, it seems that seasonal variability affects host immunity and physiology through energy allocation in a trade-off between life important functions, especially reproduction and fish condition. Host immunity measures were not found to be in a trade-off with the investigated physiological traits or functions, but we confirmed the immunosuppressive role of 11-ketotestosterone on fish immunity measured by complement activity. We suggest that the different parasite life-strategies influence different aspects of host physiology and activate the different immunity pathways. |
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