Sasser Kristofer Trey, Weber Jesse N
University of Alaska Anchorage, Anchorage, AK, USA. Current address: University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA.
430 Lincoln Dr, Birge Hall, Madison WI, 53706.
Evol Ecol. 2023 Feb;37(1):203-214. doi: 10.1007/s10682-022-10213-5. Epub 2022 Oct 20.
What are the relative costs and benefits of mounting immune responses? Practitioners of ecoimmunology have grappled with this central question since the field's inception with the main tension being how to make tractable methodological choices that maintain the ecological relevance of induced and measured immune costs. Here, we point out two methodological approaches that we feel are underrepresented in the field, describe risks associated with neglecting these methods, and suggest modern techniques that maximize both the diversity and ecological relevance of collected data. First, it is commonly assumed that frequently used and experimentally convenient immune stimulants will induce ecologically relevant immune responses in study organisms. This can be a dangerous assumption. Even if a stimulant's general immune response properties are well characterized, it is critical to also measure the type and scale of immune responses induced by live pathogens. Second, patterns of immune defenses evolve like other traits, thus a comparative approach is essential to understand what forces shape immune variation. Finally, we describe modern genetic and immunological approaches that will soon become essential tools for ecoimmunologists, and present case studies that exemplify the utility of our recommendations.
引发免疫反应的相对成本和收益是什么？自生态免疫学领域创立以来，该领域的从业者就一直在努力解决这个核心问题，主要的矛盾在于如何做出易于处理的方法选择，同时保持所诱导和测量的免疫成本的生态相关性。在这里，我们指出两种在该领域中未得到充分体现的方法，描述忽视这些方法所带来的风险，并建议采用现代技术，以最大限度地提高所收集数据的多样性和生态相关性。首先，人们通常认为常用且实验方便的免疫刺激剂会在研究生物体中引发具有生态相关性的免疫反应。这可能是一个危险的假设。即使一种刺激剂的一般免疫反应特性已得到充分表征，测量由活病原体诱导的免疫反应的类型和规模也至关重要。其次，免疫防御模式与其他特征一样会进化，因此比较方法对于理解塑造免疫变异的因素至关重要。最后，我们描述了现代遗传和免疫学方法，这些方法很快将成为生态免疫学家必不可少的工具，并展示了案例研究，以例证我们建议的实用性。
