Contemporary variations of immune responsiveness during range expansion of two invasive rodents in Senegal

Biological invasions provide unique opportunities for studying life history trait changes over contemporary time scales. As spatial spread may be related to changes in parasite communities, several hypotheses (such as the evolution of increased competitive ability (EICA) or EICA-refined hypotheses) suggest immune changes in invasive species along invasion gradients. Although native hosts may be subject to similar changes in parasite selection pressures, their immune responses have been rarely investigated in invasion contexts. In this study, we evaluated immune variations for invasive house mice Mus musculus domesticus, invasive black rats Rattus rattus and native rodents Mastomys erythroleucus and Mastomys natalensis along well-characterised invasion gradients in Senegal. We focused on antibody-mediated (natural antibodies and complement) and inflammatory (haptoglobin) responses. One invasion route was considered for each invasive species, and environmental conditions were recorded. Na...生物入侵为研究当代时间尺度下的生活史特征变化提供了独特契机。鉴于空间扩散可能与寄生虫群落的变化相关，多项假说（如竞争力增强进化（Evolution of Increased Competitive Ability, EICA）假说或EICA改良假说）均指出，入侵物种的免疫状态会随入侵梯度发生改变。尽管本土宿主可能面临相似的寄生虫选择压力变化，但目前极少有研究在入侵背景下探究其免疫应答。本研究针对塞内加尔境内特征明确的入侵梯度，对入侵物种家鼠（Mus musculus domesticus）、黑鼠（Rattus rattus）以及本土啮齿类红颊磨齿鼠（Mastomys erythroleucus）和 Natal 磨齿鼠（Mastomys natalensis）的免疫变异情况进行了评估。本研究聚焦于抗体介导免疫（天然抗体与补体）与炎症（触珠蛋白）两类免疫反应。本研究为每种入侵物种设定了一条入侵路径，并记录了相关环境条件。Na...