Hosts, symbionts and parasites - beyond pairwise interactions

• Applicant: Dr. Nina Hafer-Hahmann
• Subject Area: Evolution, Anthropology ; Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
• Term: from 2017 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 394328822

The interactions between hosts and their parasites are one of the major driving forces of evolution. Studies of host-parasite-interactions often focus on the interaction between a single host and a single parasite. By contrast, in nature hosts will usually harbor multiple parasites and symbionts which can strongly alter the outcome of infections. Some symbionts for example can protect their host from infection. I intend to add to a better understanding of how symbionts alter host-parasite interactions and vice versa.Copepods can be easily studied in the laboratory and harbor many parasites. While some work has been done on host-parasite-interactions and parasite-parasite-interactions, little is known on whether they harbor any protective symbionts. I hence aim to identify such symbionts, investigate their interactions with other parasites and thereby hope to establish copepods as a system to study interactions between hosts and multiple parasites and symbionts.Parasites are well-known drivers of immune gene diversity due to the diverse and unpredictable assembly of parasites a host will encounter. Similarly, parasites and symbionts encounter different co-infecting parasites. Does the diversity of co-infecting parasites promote parasite and symbiont diversity? Aphids are well-established to study interactions between hosts, symbionts and parasitoids. I plan to use this system to investigate whether symbiont diversity is maintained by parasitoid diversity using an experimental evolution approach.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Switzerland
• Host: Professor Dr. Christoph Vorburger