van Himbeeck Robbert, Sowa Jessica N, Tamim El Jarkass Hala, Wu Wenjia, Oude Vrielink Job, Riksen Joost A G, Reinke Aaron, van Sluijs Lisa
Laboratory of Nematology, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, Gelderland, The Netherlands.
Department of Biology, West Chester University of Pennsylvania, West Chester, PA, USA.
R Soc Open Sci. 2025 Apr 2;12(4):242088. doi: 10.1098/rsos.242088. eCollection 2025 Apr.
Host diversity can affect parasite prevalence, a phenomenon widely studied in macroscopic organisms. However, data from microscopic communities are lacking, despite their essential role in ecosystem functioning and the unique experimental opportunities microscopic organisms offer. Here, we study diversity-disease effects in wild nematode communities by profiting from the molecular tools available in the well-studied model nematode . Nanopore sequencing was used to characterize nematode community diversity and composition, whereas parasites were identified using nine distinct experimental assays based on fluorescent staining or fluorescent reporter strains. Our results indicate that biotic stress is abundant in wild nematode communities. Moreover, in two assays, diversity-disease relations were observed: microsporidia and immune system activation were more often detected in relatively species-poor communities. Other assays, targeting different parasites, were without diversity-disease relations. Together, this study provides the first demonstration of diversity-disease effects in microbial communities and establishes the use of nematode communities as model systems to study disease-diversity relationships.
宿主多样性会影响寄生虫的流行程度，这是在宏观生物中广泛研究的一种现象。然而，尽管微生物群落对生态系统功能起着至关重要的作用，并且微生物提供了独特的实验机会，但关于微生物群落的数据却很缺乏。在这里，我们利用在经过充分研究的模式线虫中可用的分子工具，研究野生线虫群落中的多样性 - 疾病效应。纳米孔测序用于表征线虫群落的多样性和组成，而寄生虫则使用基于荧光染色或荧光报告菌株的九种不同实验方法进行鉴定。我们的结果表明，生物胁迫在野生线虫群落中很普遍。此外，在两项实验中，观察到了多样性 - 疾病关系：在物种相对较少的群落中，更常检测到微孢子虫和免疫系统激活。针对不同寄生虫的其他实验则没有发现多样性 - 疾病关系。总之，这项研究首次证明了微生物群落中的多样性 - 疾病效应，并确立了将线虫群落用作研究疾病 - 多样性关系的模型系统。
