Parasites and the Amazon molly: a role for the Red Queen?

我们想要研究寄生虫在维持无性亚马逊Molly交配系统中的作用。我们采用的观点是，类似于共同进化的“红女王”军备竞赛可能会给有性物种带来显著的好处。为了解决这个问题，我们想要比较生活在相同栖息地的无性恋者和有性恋者的寄生虫量。这里提出的项目将继续去年秋天开始的一项研究。为了完成这项研究，我们计划对德克萨斯州(美国)的台湾松树和宽叶松树的种群进行抽样。我们将使用鱼类寄生虫学中的标准技术来确定寄生虫的负载量，并使用这些数据在三个层面上进行比较：(1)比较冬季前后的地点，(2)比较无性的Amazon Molly(P.formosa)和有性关系的宽叶锦鸡儿与Respekt to Parceskt的寄生虫量(这将是主要的比较)，最后比较样本种群。寄生虫学数据将得到与寄生虫负载有关的物种的生态和行为数据的补充。到目前为止，只有很少的研究使用这一理论框架来直接比较有性物种和无性物种，我们预计这项研究将产生一些高排名的出版物。

We want to study the role of parasites in the maintenance of the mating system of the asexual Amazon molly. We apply the idea that a "Red Queen" like coevolutionary arms race might be providing a significant benefit for the sexual species. To tackle this problem we want to compare the parasite loads of asexual and sexual mollies, which live in identical habitats. The project proposed here will continue a study that was started in the fall of last year. To complete the study we plan to sample populations of P.formosa and P.latipinna in Texas (USA). We will determine parasite loads using standard techniques available in fish parasitology and use the data to make comparisons on three levels: (1) compare the sites before and after winter, (2) compare the asexual Amazon molly (P.formosa) and the sexual P.latipinna with respekt to parasite load (this will be the main comparison), and finally compare the sampled populations. The parasitological data will be supplemented by data on ecology and behavior of the species in relation to parasite load. Only very few studies have so far used this theoretical framework for direct comparisons of a sexual and an asexual species, and we expect a number of high ranking publications to result from this study.