Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Vector-borne pathogens experience a conflict of interest when the arthropod vector chooses a vertebrate host that is incompetent for pathogen transmission.
The qualitative manipulation hypothesis suggests that vector-borne pathogens can resolve this conflict in their favour by manipulating the host choice behaviour of the arthropod vector. European Lyme disease is a model system for studying this conflict because Ixodes ricinus is a generalist tick species that vectors Borrelia pathogens that are specialized on different classes of vertebrate hosts.
Avian specialists like B. The present study tested whether Borrelia genospecies influenced the attraction of field-collected I. Nymphs were significantly attracted to questing perches that had been scented with mouse odours. However, there was no difference in questing behaviour between nymphs infected with rodent- versus bird-specialized Borrelia genospecies. Our study suggests that the tick, and not the pathogen, controls the early stages of host choice behaviour.
The online version of this article doi Keywords: Borrelia burgdorferi , Borrelia afzelii , Borrelia garinii , Host choice behaviour, Host manipulation, Ixodes ricinus , Lyme borreliosis, Tick questing behaviour, Tick-borne disease, Vector-borne pathogen.
Many tick species appear to be generalists that feed on a wide range of vertebrate hosts [ 1 - 3 ]. The broad host range of generalist tick species has important consequences for the ecology of tick-borne pathogens and the human risk of contracting tick-borne infections [ 4 ].
