Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T01:19:58.505Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An anomaly against a current paradigm – extremely low rates of individual fecundity variability of the Gordian worm (Nematomorpha: Gordiida)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2008

B. HANELT
B. HANELT*
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, MSC03 2020, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Tel: +01 505 2772754. Fax: +01 505 2770304. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

Extreme variation in reproductive success (VRS) has been reported as a common feature of populations. Few individuals producing most of the offspring for the next generation has potential consequences for the population dynamics, genetics, and evolution of a group of organisms. High VRS has been described as a normal feature of helminth populations, although studies have focused largely on parasites of vertebrate hosts. Paragordius varius, a parasite of crickets, was used as a model system to study VRS. In this life cycle, worms absorb and store resources for reproduction from their hosts before being released into water. Egg output varied significantly with worm length, indicating that female length is an excellent predictor of fecundity. Analyses using the Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient suggest that there were no marked fecundity differences. This result was supported by data collected from a natural gordiid population, Gordius difficilis, suggesting that within gordiid populations the offspring of the next generation are contributed nearly equally by females. In addition, male body length appeared to be limited by intensity, whereas females showed no length limitation by crowding. These results contrast previous studies of parasites.

Keywords

fecundity variabilityGini coefficientgordiidsNematomorphaintensity-dependenceParagordius variusGordius difficilis
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 136 , Issue 2 , February 2009 , pp. 211 - 218
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bolek, M. G. and Coggins, J. R. (2002). Seasonal occurrence, morphology, and observation on the life history of Gordius difficilis (Nematomorpha: Gordioidea) from southeastern Wisconsin, United States. Journal of Parasitology 88, 287–294.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Criscione, C. D. and Blouin, M. S. (2005). Effective sizes of macroparasite populations: a conceptual model. Trends in Parasitology 21, 212–217.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damgaard, C. and Weiner, J. (2000). Describing inequality in plant size or fecundity. Ecology 81, 1139–1142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Desender, K. (1994). Carabid Beetles: Ecology and Evolution. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, MA, USA.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dixon, P. M., Weiner, J., Mitchell-Olds, T. and Woodley, R. (1987). Bootstrapping the Gini coefficient of inequality. Ecology 68, 1548–1551.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobson, A. P. (1986). Inequalities in the individual reproductive success of parasites. Parasitology 92, 675–682.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gini, C. (1912). Variabilita e Mutabilita Contributo allo Studio delle Distributioni e delle Relationi Statistiche. Studi Economico-Giuridici della Reale Universita di Cagliari, Bolonga, Italy.Google Scholar
Hamilton, W. D. (1963). The evolution of altruistic behavior. The American Naturalist 97, 354–356.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, W. D. (1964). The genetical theory of social behaviour I and II. Theoretical Biology 7, 1–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanelt, B. and Janovy, J. Jr. (2002). Morphometric analysis of non-adult characters of common species of American gordiids (Nematomorpha: Gordioidea). Journal of Parasitology 88, 557–562.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanelt, B. and Janovy, J. Jr. (2004). Untying a Gordian knot: the domestication and laboratory maintenance of a Gordian worm, Paragordius varius (Nematomorpha: Gordiida). Journal of Natural History 39, 939–950.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanelt, B., Thomas, F. and Schmidt-Rhaesa, A. (2005). Biology of the phylum Nematomorpha. Advances in Parasitology 59, 243–305.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harmon, G. D. and Stamp, N. E. (1992). Effects of postdispersal seed predation on spatial inequality and size variability in an annual plant, Erodium cicutarium (Geraniaceae). American Journal of Botany 79, 300–305.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Inoue, I. (1959). Distribution of acid and alkaline phosphotases in the hairworm, Chordodes japonensis. Annotationes Zoologicae Japonenses 32, 209–213.Google Scholar
Kirjanova, E. S. (1959). Permeability of the cuticle in freshwater hairworms (Nematomorpha: Gordioidea). Zoologicheskii Zhurnal 38, 509–519.Google Scholar
Lorenz, M. O. (1905). Methods for measuring the concentration of wealth. American Statistical Association 9, 209–219.Google Scholar
Müller, M. C. M., Jochmann, R. and Schmidt-Rhaesa, A. (2004). The musculature of horsehair worm larvae (Gordius aquaticus, Paragordius varius, Nematomorpha): F-actin staining and reconstruction by cLSM and TEM. Zoomorphology 123, 45–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oka, H. I. and Lu, C. S. (1995). Competition, density response and self-thinning observed in rice. Botanical Bulletin of Academia Sinica 36, 113–120.Google Scholar
Poulin, R. (1995). Hairworms (Nematomorpha: Gordioidea) infecting New Zealand short-horned grasshoppers (Orthoptera: Acrididae). Journal of Parasitology 81, 121–122.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Poulin, R. and Latham, A. D. (2002). Inequalities in size and intensity-dependent growth in a mermithid nematode parasitic in beach hoppers. Journal of Helminthology 76, 65–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramstad, S. and Hestmark, G. (2001). Population structure and size-dependent reproductive effort in Umbilicaria spodochroa. Mycologia 93, 453–458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, D. C. and Cazeir-Shinn, D. (2004). Interspecific competition and development of size structure in the invasive snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum (Gray, 1853). American Malacological Bulletin 19, 33–37.Google Scholar
Schmidt-Rhaesa, A. (2005). Morphogenesis of Paragordius varius (Nematomorpha) during the parasitic phase. Zoomorphology 124, 33–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shostak, A. W. and Dick, T. A. (1987). Individual variability in reproductive success of Triaenophorus crassus Forel (Cestoda: Pseudophyllidae), with comments on use of the Lorenz curve and Gini Coefficient. Canadian Journal of Zoology 65, 2878–2885.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shrivastava, J., Gower, C. M., Balolong, E. Jr., Wang, T. P., Qian, B. Z. and Webster, J. P. (2005). Population genetics of multi-host parasites – the case for molecular epidemiological studies of Schistosoma japonicum using larval stages from naturally infected hosts. Parasitology 131, 617–626.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shumway, D. L. and Koide, R. T. (1995). Size and reproductive inequality in mycorrhizal and nonmycorrhizal populations of Abutilon theophrasti. Journal of Ecology 83, 613–620.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szalai, A. J. and Dick, T. A. (1989). Differences in numbers and inequalities in mass and fecundity during the egg-production period for Raphidascaris acus (Nematoda: Anisakidae). Parasitology 98, 489–495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, F., Schmidt-Rhaesa, A., Martin, G., Manu, C., Durand, P. and Renaud, F. (2002). Do hairworms (Nematomorpha) manipulate the water seeking behaviour of their terrestrial hosts? Journal of Evolutionary Biology 15, 356–361.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, F., Ulitsky, P., Augier, R., Dusticier, N., Samuel, D., Strambi, C., Biron, D. G. and Cayre, M. (2003). Biochemical and histological changes in the brain of the cricket Nemobius sylvestris infected by the manipulative parasite Paragordius tricuspidatus (Nematomorpha). International Journal for Parasitology 33, 435–443.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Weiner, J. and Solbrig, O. T. (1984). The meaning and measurement of size hierarchies in plant-populations. Oecologia 61, 334–336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wilson, C. and Gurevitch, J. (1995). Plant size and spatial pattern in a natural population of Myosotis micrantha. Journal of Vegetation Science 6, 847–852.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, J. B. and Levin, D. A. (1986). Some genetic consequences of skewed fecundity distributions in plants. Theoretical and Applied Genetics 73, 113–121.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed