Top Lecture: Evolutionary ecology of host-parasite interactions: ticks and hole-nesting songbirds

Prof. dr. Erik Matthyssen of the University of Antwerp will give a top lecture about "Evolutionary ecology of host-parasite interactions: ticks and hole-nesting songbirds" on Friday January 27th. (10.00h - 11.00 h).

The lecture will be held at  at IBL, Sylvius Building, lecture room 1.5.31, first floor.

Summary of lecture

Parasitism is generally considered as an important evolutionary force, leading to mutual adaptations and arms races in host and parasite. Nevertheless, even in very commonly studied species such as hole-nesting songbirds, interactions with parasites have received comparatively little attention compared to other selection pressures such as predation, food or sexual selection.

In this lecture he shall report on our ongoing research on interactions between great and blue tits as hosts, and several tick species (Ixodidae) as parasites. Ticks have a number of features that make them particularly interesting for studies of host-parasite interactions, including their amenability to experimental infestations in both lab and field conditions. Great and blue tits are regularly infested with two tick species with highly contrasting ecologies: the generalist field-dwelling sheep tick (Ixodes ricinus) and the generalist tree-hole tick (Ixodes arboricola), a specialist of hole-nesting forest birds. 

He shall first focus on the impact of ticks on hosts, and the possible defense strategies of birds to avoid or minimalize the cost of infestation. Then he shall focus on behavioural and ecological adaptations of I. arboricola to its nidicolous lifestyle, which makes it highly dependent on its host for survival, future reproduction and dispersal. Since ticks feed only once in each life stage and remain attached to the host for several days, we conducted a series of experiments studying how ticks decide when to attack and when to leave a particular host (attachment and detachment strategies).

Finally he shall broaden the scope towards other hosts and tick species and discuss some of our research plans towards evolution of host specificity and the potential role of ticks as bridging vectors between multiple zoönotic cycles of Borrelia. In this part he shall also refer to previous work by other authors on ticks in seabird colonies.