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Project information
The role of immune investment in the context of trade-offs: immuno-ecological study of the relationships among reproduction, immunity and parasitism

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Project Identification
GA524/07/0188
Project Period
1/2007 - 12/2011
Investor / Pogramme / Project type
Czech Science Foundation
  • Standard Projects
MU Faculty or unit
Faculty of Science
Keywords
host-parasite associations, investment in immunity and reproduction, trade-off, parasites
Cooperating Organization
University of South Bohemia České Budějovice
  • Responsible person Ing. Martin Flajšhans

The investment in immune function is considered as one of the life traits and therefore could play a role in life history trade-off. The host develops the immune system protecting again parasites and pathogens, but the increased investment in immune defence should be compromised by the investment in other activities connected with host maintenance and reproduction. The aims of the present project is to investigated (1) trade-off between investment in reproduction and immune function, (2) the impact of parasitism on the host viability (condition status), reproductive investment and immunocompetence on the base of trade-offs hypotheses (energy allocation, immunocompetence handicap, sperm competition, sperm protection, parasite-mediated sexual selection). (3) Moreover, the prediction that the diversity of Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genes is maintained by parasite or pathogen selection was applied in this study. Then, we hypothesize that MHC diversity could represent the "good quality" genes potentially affecting fish vigour and reflecting reproductive ability of individuals or being selected by special reproductive strategies. The potential role of MHC in fish life trade-offs will be tested. The associations between the quality of sperms and/or sexual ornamentation connected to expression of MHC genes in cyprinid fish will be studied.

Publications

Total number of publications: 40

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