Discriminating fever behavior in house flies

PLoS One. 2013 Apr 19;8(4):e62269. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0062269. Print 2013.

Abstract

Fever has generally been shown to benefit infected hosts. However, fever temperatures also carry costs. While endotherms are able to limit fever costs physiologically, the means by which behavioral thermoregulators constrain these costs are less understood. Here we investigated the behavioral fever response of house flies (Musca domestica L.) challenged with different doses of the fungal entomopathogen, Beauveria bassiana. Infected flies invoked a behavioral fever selecting the hottest temperature early in the day and then moving to cooler temperatures as the day progressed. In addition, flies infected with a higher dose of fungus exhibited more intense fever responses. These variable patterns of fever are consistent with the observation that higher fever temperatures had greater impact on fungal growth. The results demonstrate the capacity of insects to modulate the degree and duration of the fever response depending on the severity of the pathogen challenge and in so doing, balance the costs and benefits of fever.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Beauveria / physiology*
  • Behavior, Animal / physiology*
  • Body Temperature Regulation / physiology
  • Colony Count, Microbial
  • Fever / microbiology*
  • Houseflies / microbiology*
  • Houseflies / physiology*

Grants and funding

This project was part-funded by an NSF-EID grant (no. EF-0914384) and a grant with the Pennsylvania Department of Health using Tobacco Settlement Funds. The Department specifically disclaims responsibility for any analyses, interpretations or conclusions and other funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.