Title: Epidemic Outcomes Depend on Female Preference: Integrating Parasite-Mediated Sexual Selection and Infectious Disease Dynamics
Abstract:
If we have learned anything from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that behavior dictates transmission of infectious diseases. But a suite of behaviors not often considered outside of the study of strictly sexually transmitted infections is mating behaviors, despite how the association between hosts due to courting and mating fulfills the close contact needed for the direct transmission of infections, like the Gyrodactyliid parasites of our study system’s host, Poecilia reticulata. Classic theories suggest that hosts prefer the most ornamented mates because ornamentation signals quality. And if the quality of a mate dictates their resistance to parasites, then there should be a direct mechanistic link between preference for ornamented mates and decreased parasite spread. I evaluated this prediction with field data collected from wild populations of our system in Trinidad along with a theoretical model and indeed found that hosts in populations where female guppies preferred males with more orange ornamentation had a lower probability of being infected. I have further collected data from laboratory studies to fill in the gap left by the field data to quantify how much male ornamentation predicts contact rates with females and how this translates to parasite spread. My data also allows me to explore variation in the honesty of ornamentation in advertising resistance and how this may affect parasite spread. Ultimately, my work helps answer the question of which individuals contribute the most to controlling or encouraging the spread of parasites.
Stephenson Lab
Wednesday, January 10th, 2023
12:00PM
Langley A219B