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Olfactory Preferences of the Parasitic Nematode Howardula aoronymphium and its Insect Host Drosophila falleni

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Abstract

Many parasitic nematodes have an environmental infective stage that searches for hosts. Olfaction plays an important role in this process, with nematodes navigating their environment using host-emitted and environmental olfactory cues. The interactions between parasitic nematodes and their hosts are also influenced by the olfactory behaviors of the host, since host olfactory preferences drive behaviors that may facilitate or impede parasitic infection. However, how olfaction shapes parasite-host interactions is poorly understood. Here we investigated this question using the insect-parasitic nematode Howardula aoronymphium and its host, the mushroom fly Drosophila falleni. We found that both H. aoronymphium and D. falleni are attracted to mushroom odor and a subset of mushroom-derived odorants, but they have divergent olfactory preferences that are tuned to different mushroom odorants despite their shared mushroom environment. H. aoronymphium and D. falleni respond more narrowly to odorants than Caenorhabditis elegans and Drosophila melanogaster, consistent with their more specialized niches. Infection of D. falleni with H. aoronymphium alters its olfactory preferences, rendering it more narrowly tuned to mushroom odor. Our results establish H. aoronymphium-D. falleni as a model system for studying olfaction in the context of parasite-host interactions.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center and Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center for strains, Sophie Rengarajan and Wendy Fung for assistance with motility assays, and Michelle Castelletto for insightful comments on the manuscript. J.A.C. was a UCLA Amgen Scholar (2016), UCLA Maximizing Student Diversity Scholar (2016), UCLA Center for Academic & Research Excellence (CARE) Scholar (2016), and a Whitcome Undergraduate Research Fellow (2015). He was supported by NIGMS grant R25GM055052 to T. Hasson. E.A.H. is a MacArthur Fellow and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholar.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA

    James A. Cevallos, Ryo P. Okubo & Elissa A. Hallem

  2. Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, V8W 3N5, Canada

    Steve J. Perlman

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  1. James A. Cevallos
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  2. Ryo P. Okubo
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  4. Elissa A. Hallem
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Correspondence to Elissa A. Hallem.

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Cevallos, J.A., Okubo, R.P., Perlman, S.J. et al. Olfactory Preferences of the Parasitic Nematode Howardula aoronymphium and its Insect Host Drosophila falleni . J Chem Ecol 43, 362–373 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-017-0834-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10886-017-0834-z

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