Our new paper came out this week in Functional Ecology showing that parasites begin having energetic impacts on their hosts long before infection takes hold. Using the California killifish and its brain infecting parasite Euhaplorchis californiensis, we observed major increases in metabolic rate and activity in killifish hosts in response to infectious parasites in the environment, highlighting that parasites can disrupt their host´s metabolism even before they start feeding on them.
Check out the paper here: https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2435.13695?af=R And the press release from Scripps Institution of Oceanography here: https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/new-study-finds-parasites-can-drain-energy-hosts-prior-infection
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After an exceptionally strange and field-less year, it was SOOO nice to get back out in the field again, even for the day. We headed up to Fort Pierce, FL (about 2 hours north of Dania Beach) to look for local killifish in the mangroves with Dr. Nancy Smith (Eckerd College). We caught lots of cool critters - but no killifish unfortunately! Next time!
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