List

It is well established that parasites can have profound effects on the behaviour of host organisms, and that individual differences in behaviour can influence susceptibility to parasite infections. Recently, two major themes of research have developed. First, there has been a growing interest in the proximate, mechanistic processes underpinning parasite-associated behaviour change, and the interactive roles of the neuro-, immune, and other physiological systems in determining relationships between behaviour and infection susceptibility. Secondly, as the study of behaviour has shifted away from one-off measurements of single behaviours and towards a behavioural syndromes/personality framework, research is starting to focus on the consequences of parasite infection for temporal and contextual consistency of behaviour, and on the implications of different personality types for infection susceptibility. In addition, there is increasing interest in the potential for relationships between cognition and personality to also have implications for host-parasite interactions. As models well-suited to both the laboratory study of behaviour and experimental parasitology, teleost fish have been used as hosts in many of these studies. In this review we provide a broad overview of the range of mechanisms that potentially generate links between fish behaviour, personality, and parasitism, and illustrate these using examples drawn from the recent literature. In addition, we examine the potential interactions between cognition, personality and parasitism, and identify questions that may be usefully investigated with fish models.

  Posts

September 1st, 2018

Graduate student position available studying alternative reproductive tactics at BGSU

We seek a graduate student for a newly NSF-funded project examining the life history decisions made by male smallmouth bass. […]

June 14th, 2018

Part of that World

The other day I was singing “Part of your World” from The Little Mermaid, but was changing some of the […]

June 13th, 2018

Parasite manipulation of host behavior in pop culture

I’m going to be giving a talk at the sure-to-be-amazing Zombie Apocalypse Medicine Meeting. The meeting celebrates all things zombie-related, and […]

June 4th, 2017

Soonish giveaway on Goodreads!

Five copies of the advance reader version of Zach and my new book Soonish are up for grabs on Goodreads! Click […]

March 7th, 2017

Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything

Zach and I wrote a book! Soonish: Ten Emerging Technologies That’ll Improve and/or Ruin Everything explores 10 emerging technologies, and discusses the roadblocks […]

January 26th, 2017

Tales from the Crypt: a parasitoid manipulates the behaviour of its parasite host

I have a new paper out with Dr. Scott Egan, Dr. Andrew Forbes, and Sean Liu! The paper is Open Access […]

May 30th, 2016

Postdoc with Dr. Ryan Hechinger (and me!)

We’re looking for a postdoc! See below! —————— Postdoctoral Opportunity with the Marine Biology Research Division at SIO Postdoctoral Scholar […]

May 7th, 2016

Science…sort of Episode 240: Moon Rocks Don’t Glow

I co-hosted an episode of Science…sort of recently. I pasted the show notes below, but you’ll have to head over […]

February 24th, 2016

Books on parasites

I’m often asked by students to suggest books they can read about parasites. Below is a list of books that […]

August 22nd, 2015

Great Adaptations – A kid’s book about evolution

Zach Weinersmith and I contributed to Tiffany Taylor’s children’s book about evolution. Tiffany worked with scientists to create Seuss-style stories […]