PARA-PEST
The role of host personality and stress responses in parasite dynamics
| Coordinatore | CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Organization address
address: Newport Road 30-36 contact info |
| Nazionalità Coordinatore | United Kingdom [UK] |
| Totale costo | 201˙049 € |
| EC contributo | 201˙049 € |
| Programma | FP7-PEOPLE
Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) |
| Code Call | FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IIF |
| Funding Scheme | MC-IIF |
| Anno di inizio | 2011 |
| Periodo (anno-mese-giorno) | 2011-09-01 - 2013-08-31 |
Partecipanti
| # | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
Organization address
address: Newport Road 30-36 contact info |
UK (CARDIFF) | coordinator | 201˙049.60 |
Mappa
Word cloud
Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.
Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)
'The study of personality - consistent individual differences in animal behaviour - is a rapidly expanding research field. Like humans, animals may be categorized on personality axes such as bold-shy and aggressive-passive. These traits have both costs and benefits. However, the mechanisms underlying individual variation in personality and the consequences for evolutionary fitness are largely unknown.
For the first time, links between personality and stress physiology (a potential determinant of personality) will be investigated in the context of parasite infection. Using a fish host-gyrodactylid parasite model, this fellowship will (1) quantify the links between personality and stress, (2) assess the susceptibility to infection of hosts that vary in personality/stress physiology, and (3) determine how environmental stress during development affects adult personality and subsequent parasite infection.
This multi-disciplinary project will integrate techniques from behavioural ecology, physiology and parasitology, to provide a 'step change' in our understanding of the causes and consequences of personality. Gyrodactylids are important ectoparasites, ubiquitous on teleost fish, which have huge economic impacts, particularly in the Norwegian salmon industry. Knowledge of how stress during development ultimately affects disease susceptibility, has important implications for fisheries, agriculture and captive-rearing programmes for conservation. However, the results from this project are applicable to disease dynamics in a wide range of hosts, including humans. Overall, determining how variation in host personality affects infection rates will provide a fundamental advance in our understanding of host-parasite dynamics.'
Introduzione (Teaser)
The link between stress, personality and infection