And manipulation appears to be an obvious way to do it. |
Gametocyte-infected children attracted about twice as many mosquitoes as either uninfected ones or ones infected with non-transmissible stages. The results really jump out. |
I think the main problem with the previous studies is that they couldn't really tease apart the effect of infection and the intrinsic differences in attractiveness among people. |
It's amazing how much manipulation is going on in parasites. |
It's amazing how much manipulation is going on in parasites. It would be hard to find a case where there wasn't some manipulation. |
The fact that the parasite manipulates the mosquito to this extent can help to explain the incredibly intense transmission of malaria. |