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Updated: Jul 19, 2026

Studying Inherited Immunity in a Caenorhabditis elegans Model of Microsporidia Infection
Published on: April 6, 2022
Mating and immunity in invertebrates
Mara K N Lawniczak1, Andrew I Barnes, Jon R Linklater
1Department of Biology, Darwin Building, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK. marakat@ucl.ac.uk
Abstract:
Mating and immunity are intimately linked to fitness. In both vertebrates and invertebrates, recent investigations into mate choice for immunity, tradeoffs between reproduction and immunity, and the relationships between post-mating processes and immune function have revealed that mating and immunity are also intimately linked to each other. Here, we focus on invertebrates and critically examine the evidence that immunity is under sexual selection, both pre- and post-mating, and explore other hypotheses linking mating and immunity. We find little evidence for a consensus regarding which theories best account for the accumulating empirical data. However, we suggest that progress can quickly be made by exploiting the intrinsic strengths of invertebrate model systems.
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