School of Biological Sciences, The University of Sydney, Heydon-Laurence Building A08, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
Biol Lett. 2009 Dec 23;5(6):845-8. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0495. Epub 2009 Aug 12.
Transgenerational effects of parental experience on offspring immunity are well documented in the vertebrate literature (where antibodies play an obligatory role), but have only recently been described in invertebrates. We have assessed the impact of parental rearing density upon offspring disease resistance by challenging day-old locust hatchlings (Schistocerca gregaria) from either crowd- or solitary-reared parents with the fungal pathogen Metarhizium anisopliae var. acridum. When immersed in standardized conidia suspensions, hatchlings from gregarious parents suffered greater pathogen-induced mortality than hatchlings from solitary-reared parents. This observation contradicts the basic theory of positive density-dependent prophylaxis and demonstrates that crowding has a transgenerational influence upon locust disease resistance.
亲代经验对后代免疫的跨代效应在脊椎动物文献中已有充分记载（在脊椎动物中，抗体起着必需的作用），但最近才在无脊椎动物中被描述。我们通过用真菌病原体绿僵菌侵染群居或独居饲养的父母所产的一天大的蝗虫若虫（Schistocerca gregaria），评估了亲代饲养密度对后代抗病能力的影响。当将若虫浸泡在标准化的分生孢子悬浮液中时，群居父母所产的若虫比独居父母所产的若虫遭受更多的病原体诱导的死亡率。这一观察结果与积极的密度依赖预防的基本理论相矛盾，并表明拥挤对蝗虫的抗病能力具有跨代影响。
