Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons^™

Effects Of The Floral Phytochemical Eugenol On Parasite Evolution And Bumble Bee Infection And Preference, Evan C. Palmer-Young, Austin C. Calhoun, Anastasiya Mirzayeva, Benn M. Sadd

Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Graduate Student Publication Series

Ecological and evolutionary pressures on hosts and parasites jointly determine infection success. In pollinators, parasite exposure to floral phytochemicals may influence between-host transmission and within-host replication. In the bumble bee parasite Crithidia bombi, strains vary in phytochemical resistance, and resistance increases under in vitro selection, implying that resistance/infectivity trade-offs could maintain intraspecific variation in resistance. We assessed costs and benefits of in vitro selection for resistance to the floral phytochemical eugenol on C. bombi infection in Bombus impatiens fed eugenol-rich and eugenol-free diets. We also assessed infection-induced changes in host preferences for eugenol. In vitro, eugenol-exposed cells initially …