Natures wonders: Double parasitic trouble (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, February 12, 2015, 14:41 (3570 days ago) @ David Turell

A parasitoid wasp uses a virus to subdue the larva's beetle food supply:-http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/42134/title/Cooperative-Control/-"Twenty days after a fateful bite from a parasitoid wasp (Dinocampus coccinellae), a pre-pupa emerges from the bitten lady beetle (Coleomegilla maculata) and spins a cocoon between the beetle's six legs. Eventually, the beetle becomes immobile, twitching and shaking at irregular intervals, grasping the wasp cocoon as if its own life depended on it. To force C. maculata into bodyguard duty for its young, the wasp is aided by a virus— D. coccinellae paralysis virus, or DcPV—that partially paralyzes the lady beetle, according to a study published today (February 10) in Proceedings of the Royal Society B.-"Viral mediation of host-parasite interactions are nothing new. However, this study was the first to find “that a virus is involved in the behavioral manipulation by another parasite,” said Nolwenn Dheilly of Stony Brook University in New York, who led the study."-Setting this mechanism up took lots of coordination