Insect hosts and their pathogens and parasites associate in an ecologically variable world. A factor such as environmental temperature (which, for ectotherms, is a key driver of physiology and life history) can vary substantially from hour to hour and from site to site. Yet the vast majority of studies examining host-pathogen interactions, and especially those examining elements of innate immune responses, are conducted under highly controlled and simplified laboratory conditions. For example, of the dozens of studies examining different aspects of mosquito immune function, nearly all are conducted under standard insectary conditions (for malaria mosquitoes this would be something like constant 26C). But malaria is transmitted across an environmental envelope ranging from about 18-35C, with daily temperature variation around these means frequently exceeding 10C. Our interest is whether such natural variation matters; obviously, we think it does. That temperature affects host and parasite physiology is, of course, not surprising. What is surprising is how much it seems to matter and that the effects are complex and unpredictable across different immune measures. These observations represent a challenge to current disciplinary convention, where environmental variation is generally ignored.

Our work on temperature and mosquito immune function is supported by a grant from the NIH and is relatively new – we expect several publications over 2012.

Other related work includes:

• Paaijmans, K.P., Blanford, S., Chan, B.K. & Thomas, M.B. (in press). Warmer temperatures reduce the vectorial capacity of malaria mosquitoes. Biology Letters.
• Anderson, R.D., Bell, A.S., Blanford, S., Paaijmans, K.P. & Thomas, M.B. (2011). Comparative virulence and growth kinetics of four different isolates of entompathogenic fungi in the house fly Musca domestica L. Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 107: 179-184.
• Klass, J.I., Blanford, S. & Thomas, M.B. (2007). Development of a model for evaluating the effects of environmental temperature and thermal behaviour on biological control of locusts and grasshoppers using pathogens. Agricultural and Forest Entomology 9: 189-199.
• Elliot, S.L., Blanford, S., Horton, C. & Thomas, M.B. (2005). Impacts of fever on locust life history traits: cost or benefit? Biology Letters 1: 181-184.
• Thomas, M.B. & Blanford, S. (2003). Thermal biology in insect-pathogen interactions. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 18: 344-350.
• Springate, S & Thomas, M.B. (2005). Thermal Biology of the Meadow Grasshopper, Chorthippus parallelus, and the implications for resistance to disease. Ecological Entomology 30: 724-732.
• Thomas, M.B., Watson. E.L. & Valverde-Garcia, P. (2003). Mixed infections and insect-pathogen interactions. Ecology Letters 6: 183-188.
• Blanford, S., Thomas, M.B., Pugh, C. & Pell, J.K. (2003). Temperature checks the Red Queen? Resistance and virulence in a fluctuating environment. Ecology Letters 6: 2-5.
• Elliot, S.L., Blanford, S., Horton, C. & Thomas, M.B. (2003). Fever and phenotype: Transgenerational effect of disease on desert locust phase state. Ecology Letters 6: 830-836.
• Stacey, D.A., Thomas, M.B., Blanford, S., Pell., J.K., Pugh, C. & Fellowes, M.D.E. (2003). Genotype and temperature influence pea aphid resistance to a fungal entomopathogen. Physiological Entomology 28: 75-81.
• Elliot, S.L., Blanford, S. & Thomas, M.B. (2002). Host-pathogen interactions in a varying environment: temperature, behavioural fever and fitness. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 269: 1599-1607.
• Gardner, S.N. & Thomas, M.B. (2002). Costs and benefits of fighting infection in locusts. Evolutionary Ecology Research 4: 109-131.
• Wilson, K., Thomas, M.B., Blanford, S., Dogget, M.J., Simpson, S.J. & Moore, S.L. & (2002). Coping with crowds: density-dependent disease resistance in desert locusts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 99: 5471-5475.