Abstract
Gastrointestinal (GI) helminths are common parasites of humans, wildlife, and livestock, causing chronic infections. In humans and wildlife, poor nutrition or limited resources can compromise an individual's immune response, predisposing them to higher helminth burdens. This relationship has been tested in laboratory models by investigating infection outcomes following reductions of specific nutrients. However, much less is known about how diet supplementation can impact susceptibility to infection, acquisition of immunity, and drug efficacy in natural host–helminth systems. We experimentally supplemented the diet of wood mice (Apodemus sylvaticus) with high-quality nutrition and measured resistance to the common GI nematode Heligmosomoides polygyrus. To test whether diet can enhance immunity to reinfection, we also administered anthelmintic treatment in both natural and captive populations. Supplemented wood mice were more resistant to H. polygyrus infection, cleared worms more efficiently after treatment, avoided a post-treatment infection rebound, produced stronger general and parasite-specific antibody responses, and maintained better body condition. In addition, when applied in conjunction with anthelmintic treatment, supplemented nutrition significantly reduced H. polygyrus transmission potential. These results show the rapid and extensive benefits of a well-balanced diet and have important implications for both disease control and wildlife health under changing environmental conditions.
Highlights
Gastrointestinal (GI) helminth infections are ubiquitous in nature and among the most common causes of chronic disease in wildlife, livestock, and human populations [1]
We investigated the effect of diet on two metrics of body condition in the wild and laboratory (i) body mass (g) and (ii) total fat score using generalized linear mixed-effects models (GLMMs) with Gaussian error distributions and cumulative link mixed models
Mice on supplemented grids had significantly lower H. polygyrus eggs per gram (EPG) than mice on control grids, with approximately 88% less egg shedding than mice that only had access to their normally available sources of nutrition
Summary
Gastrointestinal (GI) helminth infections are ubiquitous in nature and among the most common causes of chronic disease in wildlife, livestock, and human populations [1]. We used paired experiments in wild and laboratory populations of the same species to test the effects of supplemented nutrition and anthelmintic treatment on (i) H. polygyrus burden and egg shedding and (ii) body condition and immune responses. Diet group was classified as ‘supplemented’ if greater than 50% of captures were on supplemented grids and as ‘control’ otherwise We fitted another set of three models including three levels of diet as an explanatory variable (control, mix, supplemented), where ‘mix’ represented mice found on both grid types (n = 16) and confirmed that effects of supplemented nutrition were not dependent on time (fraction of captures) spent on grid type (electronic supplementary material, §2). Host characteristics, time, and H. polygyrus infection intensity (log of egg/gram + 1) were included as fixed effects (electronic supplementary material, table S2). The residuals of a body weight-by-body length linear regression with Gaussian error were used as a fixed effect representing body condition index
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