deathly drool evolutionary and ecological basis of septic bacteria in komodo dragon mouths死亡流口水的进化和生态基础感染性细菌科摩多龙的嘴里.pdfVIP

Deathly Drool: Evolutionary and Ecological Basis of Septic Bacteria in Komodo Dragon Mouths 1,3,4 5 2,3 J. J. Bull *, Tim S. Jessop , Marvin Whiteley 1 Section of Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, United States of America, 2 Section of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, United States of America, 3 Institute for Cellular and Molecular Biology, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, United States of America, 4 Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, University of Texas, Austin, Texas, United States of America, 5 Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Abstract Komodo dragons, the world’s largest lizard, dispatch their large ungulate prey by biting and tearing flesh. If a prey escapes, oral bacteria inoculated into the wound reputedly induce a sepsis that augments later prey capture by the same or other lizards. However, the ecological and evolutionary basis of sepsis in Komodo prey acquisition is controversial. Two models have been proposed. The ‘‘bacteria as venom’’ model postulates that the oral flora directly benefits the lizard in prey capture irrespective of any benefit to the bacteria. The ‘‘passive acquisition’’ model is that the oral flora of lizards reflects the bacteria found in carrion and sick prey, with no relevance to the ability to induce sepsis in subsequent prey. A third model is proposed and analyzed here, the ‘‘lizard-lizard epidemic’’ model. In this model, bacteria are spread indirectly from one lizard mouth to another. Prey escaping an initial attack act as vectors in infecting new lizards. This model requires specific life history characteristics and ways to refute the model based on these characteristics are proposed and tested. Dragon life histories (some details of which a