Symbionts take the wheel… Host manipulation and magnetic sensing
The ecology and evolution of directional behavior and animal magnetic sensing
Primary collaborators; Lukas Landler (Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna), John Phillips (Virginia Tech)
Symbionts can have unexpected and bizarre influences over their hosts. In this project we use experimentally manipulated magnetic fields and behavioral test arenas to demonstrate that 1) crayfish have a biological compass and can sense Earth’s magnetic fields, 2) that crayfish, like many vertebrate organisms, orient their bodies to Earth’s magnetic fields, and most amazingly, 3) crayfish worms alter their hosts’ response to magnetic cues (Landler et. al in revision)!! This is the first evidence that symbionts can alter magnetically structured behavior of their hosts.