Higher parasite resistance in <i>Daphnia</i> populations with recent epidemics

Abstract

Natural populations often show genetic variation in parasite resistance, forming the basis for evolutionary response to selection imposed by parasitism. We investigated whether previous epidemics selected for higher resistance to novel parasite isolates in a Daphnia galeata-microparasite system by comparing susceptibility of host clones from populations with varying epidemic history. We manipulated resource availability to evaluate whether diet influences Daphnia susceptibility as epidemics are common in nutrient-rich lakes. Exposing clones from 10 lakes under two food treatments to an allopatric protozoan parasite, we found that Daphnia originating from lakes (mainly nutrient rich) with previous epidemics better resist infection. Despite this result, there was a tendency of higher susceptibility in the low food treatment, suggesting that higher resistance of clones from populations with epidemic background is not directly caused by lake nutrient level. Rather, our results imply that host populations respond to parasite-mediated selection by evolving higher parasite resistance.