Deleterious effects of thermal and water stresses on life history and physiology: a case study on woodlouse

We tested independently the influences of increasing temperature and decreasing moisture on life history and physiological traits in the arthropod  Armadillidium vulgare. Both increasing temperature and decreasing moisture led reproductive success to decrease. While the density of immune cells decreased and the β-galactosidase activity increased with increasing temperature and decreasing moisture, which suggests a negative impact of these stressors on individual performance, increased temperature and decreased moisture affected differently the other biomarkers conjuring different underlying mechanisms depending on the stress applied. Our findings demonstrate overall a negative impact of high temperature and low moisture on woodlouse welfare. Changing temperature or moisture had slightly different effects, illustrating the need to test further the respective role of each of these key components of climate change on organisms to predict more reliably the future of our ecosystems

Immune priming in Armadillidium vulgare against Salmonella enterica: direct or indirect costs on life history traits?

Invertebrate immune priming is defined as an enhanced protection against secondary pathogenic infections when individuals have been previously exposed to the same or a different pathogen. Immune priming can be energetically costly for individuals, thus impacting trade-offs between life-history traits, like reproduction, growth, and lifetime. Here, the reproductive cost(s) and senescence patterns of immune priming against S. enterica in the common woodlouse A. vulgare (Crustacea, Isopoda) were investigated. Four different groups of females were used that either (1) have never been injected (control), (2) were injected twice with S. enterica (7 days between infections), (3) were firstly injected with LB-broth, then with S. enterica, and (4) females injected only once with S. enterica. All females were allowed to breed with one non-infected male and were observed for eight months. Then, the number of clutches produced, the time taken to produce the clutch(es), the number of offspring in each clutch, the senescence biomarkers of females, and parameters of their haemocytes were compared. The result was that immune priming did not significantly impact reproductive abilities, senescence patterns, and haemocyte parameters of female A. vulgare, but had an indirect effect through body weight. The lighter immune primed females took less time to produce the first clutch, which contained less offspring, but they were more likely to produce a second clutch. The opposite effects were observed in the heavier immune primed females. By highlighting that immune priming was not as costly as expected in A. vulgare, these results provide new insights into the adaptive nature of this immune process

Deleterious effects of thermal and water stresses on life history and physiology: a case study on woodlouse

International audienceWe tested independently the influences of increasing temperature and decreasing mois- ture on life history and physiological traits in the arthropod Armadillidium vulgare. Both increasing temperature and decreasing moisture led reproductive success to decrease. While the density of immune cells decreased and the β-galactosidase activity increased with increasing temperature and decreasing moisture, which suggests a negative im- pact of these stressors on individual performance, increased temperature and decreased moisture affected differently the other biomarkers conjuring different underlying mech- anisms depending on the stress applied. Our findings demonstrate overall a negative impact of high temperature and low moisture on woodlouse welfare. Changing temper- ature or moisture had slightly different effects, illustrating the need to test further the respective role of each of these key components of climate change on organisms to predict more reliably the future of our ecosystems

Deleterious effects of thermal and water stresses on life history and physiology: a case study on woodlouse

International audienceWe tested independently the influences of increasing temperature and decreasing mois- ture on life history and physiological traits in the arthropod Armadillidium vulgare. Both increasing temperature and decreasing moisture led reproductive success to decrease. While the density of immune cells decreased and the β-galactosidase activity increased with increasing temperature and decreasing moisture, which suggests a negative im- pact of these stressors on individual performance, increased temperature and decreased moisture affected differently the other biomarkers conjuring different underlying mech- anisms depending on the stress applied. Our findings demonstrate overall a negative impact of high temperature and low moisture on woodlouse welfare. Changing temper- ature or moisture had slightly different effects, illustrating the need to test further the respective role of each of these key components of climate change on organisms to predict more reliably the future of our ecosystems

The crustacean Armadillidium vulgare (Latreille, 1804) (Isopoda: Oniscoidea), a new promising model for the study of cellular senescence

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