TY - GEN A1 - Sieksmeyer, Thorben T1 - Beyond nutrition: host-microbiota interactions drive shifts in the behavioural phenotypes of cockroaches N2 - Diverse animal species consume toxins, minerals or secondary compounds as an adaptive response to pathogen infection – a process termed self-medication. Recent studies have also shown that macronutrients can play an important role in an individual’s infection response. For instance African army worm caterpillars select a diet rich in protein and low in carbohydrate upon baculovirus infection. Here we investigate whether dietary choice of macronutrients also plays a role in immunity in the omnivorous cockroach: Blatta orientalis. After challenging individual cockroaches with a common entomopathogenic soil bacterium, Pseudomonas entomophila, we conducted food-choice experiments using two artificial diets differing in their relative protein to carbohydrate ratio. We show for the first time that cockroaches are able to self-select a protein-enriched diet as a response to bacterial infection. This is driven by a sharp decline in carbohydrate intake rather than an increase in protein intake. Additionally, infected cockroaches reduced their overall nutrient intake, which is consistent with an illness-induced anorexia-like response. The feeding pattern of bacteria-challenged individuals returned to normality approx 4 days after challenge. We also investigate whether cockroach survival and hemolymph immunity are enhanced in individuals when restricted to a protein-rich vs. carbohydrate-rich diet. Overall, our findings demonstrate that macronutrient preferences follow a general pattern independent of pathogen type. Furthermore, we show that interactions between nutrition and immunity are highly conserved in evolution, highlighted by the fact that caterpillars and cockroaches diverged some 386 million years ago. T2 - PhD student meeting "Conflict and Cooperation - Bridging evolution, ecology and immunity" CY - Bautzen, Germany DA - 16.03.2017 KW - Pathogen infection KW - Dietary preference KW - Cockroach KW - Immunity PY - 2017 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-bam/frontdoor/index/index/docId/39714 AN - OPUS4-39714 AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany