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Life history focus on a malaria parasite: linked traits and variation among genetic clones

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Abstract

Life history theory has long been a major campaign in evolutionary ecology, but has typically focused only on animals and plants. Life history research on single-celled eukaryotic protists such as malaria parasites (Plasmodium) will offer new insights into the theory’s general utility as well as the parasite’s basic biology. For example, parasitologists have described the Plasmodium life cycle and cell types in exquisite detail, with little discussion of evolutionary issues such as developmental links between traits. We measured 10 life history traits of replicate single-genotype experimental Plasmodium mexicanum infections in its natural lizard host to identify groups of linked traits. These 10 traits formed 4 trait groups: “Rate/Peak” merges measures of growth rate and maximum parasitemia of infections; “Timing” combines time to patency and maximum parasitemia; “Growth Shape” describes the fit to an exponential growth curve; and “Sex Ratio” includes only the gametocyte sex ratio. Parasite genotype (clone) showed no effect on the life history trait groups, with the exception of gametocyte sex ratio. Therefore, variation in most life history traits among infections appears to be driven by environmental (individual host) effects. The findings support the model that life history traits are often linked by developmental constraints. Understanding why life history traits of Plasmodium are linked in this way would offer a new window into the evolution of the parasites, and also should inform public health efforts to control infection prevalence.

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Acknowledgments

N. Hicks and J. Grauer assisted with the field experiments, and J. Grauer, K. St. Denis, N. Hicks, P. Teixeira, W. C. Stevens, D. Golschneider, and M. Lind assisted with the lab duties. We also thank the staff of the Hopland Research and Extension Center for all their help and support. The research was supported by funding from the US National Science Foundation (grant number DEB-0813832 to JJS) and ATN was supported by a US National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

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  1. Department of Biology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, 05405, USA

    Allison T. Neal & Jos. J. Schall

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  1. Allison T. Neal
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  2. Jos. J. Schall
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Correspondence to Allison T. Neal.

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10682_2013_9654_MOESM1_ESM.eps

Supplemental Figure 1: Scree plots with (a) and without (b) sex ratio included. The y-axis shows the percent of the total variation explained (eigenvalue) by each principal component (x-axis). Scree plots are used in principal components analysis for judging the number of meaningful principal components. The plot can be imagined as a mountainside with rubble (scree) at the bottom: the points making up the “mountainside” represent principal components that explain a large proportion of variation, whereas the “scree” are the points that contribute very little to explaining variation. The vertical lines on this plot represent the number of components we selected for analysis based on these plots. (EPS 5 kb)

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Neal, A.T., Schall, J.J. Life history focus on a malaria parasite: linked traits and variation among genetic clones. Evol Ecol 28, 89–102 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10682-013-9654-y

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