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charisstomaNasty Virus Makes Crickets Sterile, but Horny
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/nasty-virus-makes-crickets-sterile-horny
Scientists have identified a sexually-transmitted virus that makes male and female crickets functionally sterile -- then it encourages sexual encounters, and keeps them wanting more. Researchers call it a “viral aphrodisiac,” but really, IIV-6/CrIV is just plain messed up.
When their Gryllus texensis crickets stopped laying eggs, a Dalhousie University team led by Shelley Adamo used an electron microscope and PCR analysis to reveal a virus attacking their “fat bodies,” an important organ for protein production, immune function, and lipid storage. By this point, the organ had become blue and swollen.
Turns out, during the infection, the fat body hypertrophies (or gets bigger, the opposite of atrophies). At the same time, egg production withers, leaving the oviducts empty of eggs and making the females effectively sterile. An examination of infected males suggests that the testis is not invaded by the virus, however sperm taken from the spermatophore (the capsule containing the sperm) of infected males showed little or no motility.
Sperm that can’t swim, oviducts without eggs. This “parasitic castration” means the virus gets more of its host’s resources -- since reproduction is a huge energy expenditure -- but without actually killing it.
And here’s worst part: The males and females continued to mate when infected. In fact, the virus somehow changes their behavior, making the infected males even quicker to court females than uninfected males. When paired with females, healthy (control) males waited about 10 minutes before they started their courtship rituals. Males sick with a bacterial infection took about 13 minutes. Males infected with IIV-6/CrIV got it on in 3. About half of the pairings between infected males and uninfected females resulted in transmission.
The virus encourages this continued sexual behavior of its host because it increases transmission. Not only that, but the typical loss in appetite and reduction of sexual behavior -- normal things induced by the immune system of sick animals -- are completely absent in infected crickets. Their lymph (called hemolymph) and enzyme activity suggests a reduction in immune protein production by the fat body. During IIV-6/CrIV infection, the immune signals that induce “sickness behaviors” are absent -- because curtailing those under-the-weather feelings increases sexual encounters, which spreads the pathogen to more uninfected bugs. Parasitic mind control. Brilliant, and nasty.
The work was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology last month.
Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/nasty-virus-makes-crickets-sterile-horny#u7jbbgzr8QsPUc6D.99
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/nasty-virus-makes-crickets-sterile-horny
Scientists have identified a sexually-transmitted virus that makes male and female crickets functionally sterile -- then it encourages sexual encounters, and keeps them wanting more. Researchers call it a “viral aphrodisiac,” but really, IIV-6/CrIV is just plain messed up.
When their Gryllus texensis crickets stopped laying eggs, a Dalhousie University team led by Shelley Adamo used an electron microscope and PCR analysis to reveal a virus attacking their “fat bodies,” an important organ for protein production, immune function, and lipid storage. By this point, the organ had become blue and swollen.
Turns out, during the infection, the fat body hypertrophies (or gets bigger, the opposite of atrophies). At the same time, egg production withers, leaving the oviducts empty of eggs and making the females effectively sterile. An examination of infected males suggests that the testis is not invaded by the virus, however sperm taken from the spermatophore (the capsule containing the sperm) of infected males showed little or no motility.
Sperm that can’t swim, oviducts without eggs. This “parasitic castration” means the virus gets more of its host’s resources -- since reproduction is a huge energy expenditure -- but without actually killing it.
And here’s worst part: The males and females continued to mate when infected. In fact, the virus somehow changes their behavior, making the infected males even quicker to court females than uninfected males. When paired with females, healthy (control) males waited about 10 minutes before they started their courtship rituals. Males sick with a bacterial infection took about 13 minutes. Males infected with IIV-6/CrIV got it on in 3. About half of the pairings between infected males and uninfected females resulted in transmission.
The virus encourages this continued sexual behavior of its host because it increases transmission. Not only that, but the typical loss in appetite and reduction of sexual behavior -- normal things induced by the immune system of sick animals -- are completely absent in infected crickets. Their lymph (called hemolymph) and enzyme activity suggests a reduction in immune protein production by the fat body. During IIV-6/CrIV infection, the immune signals that induce “sickness behaviors” are absent -- because curtailing those under-the-weather feelings increases sexual encounters, which spreads the pathogen to more uninfected bugs. Parasitic mind control. Brilliant, and nasty.
The work was published in the Journal of Experimental Biology last month.
Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/nasty-virus-makes-crickets-sterile-horny#u7jbbgzr8QsPUc6D.99
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Date: 2014-04-06 10:52 pm (UTC)Haven't read The Host. *slumps* Adding to the get from Library list.
no subject
Date: 2014-04-06 11:00 pm (UTC)*Puts on devil's advocate hat* Are you now, or have you ever been, a cricket? How do you know with complete certainty that a crickets purpose is to reproduce? Many would say that a human's purpose is reproduction, does that make all the humans that can't or won't reproduce are zombies?
*takes off devil's advocate hat*
Loves you Charis!
no subject
Date: 2014-04-07 11:50 am (UTC)Ah but humans who can't for some reason reproduce can work to benefit human kind. Crickets ... not so much. Have you ever met an altruistic cricket? Heard of one?
To my knowledge I have never been a cricket.
I suppose that a cricket's purpose could encompass feeding itself to a bird and thereby keep some other cricket from being eaten so that cricket could then reproduce. Except that like a zombie, these crickets' purpose has become altered to sexually spread the disease.
Zombies, and I'm not an expert here either cause I've never been one nor hope to be, are driven to bite/eat humans and spread the disease.
They are soooooooo close but perhaps the real issue is semantics, A rose by any other name, or scientific labeling or ... something else.
You look good in a devil's advocate hat. I approve and this was fun. *grins* *HUGS*