The Eco-Immunology of Wild Mice

The immune responses that wild animals make contribute to their fitness, but what those immune responses are – and how they differ from those of laboratory animals – is hardly known. Our recent work has begun to investigate this (Abolins et al. (2017) The comparative immunology of wild and laboratory mice Mus musculus domesticus. Nature Communications, 8, 14811; Abolins et al. (2018) The ecology of immune state in a wild mammal, Mus musculus domesticus. PLoS Biology, 16, e2003538). These recent discoveries have now raised new questions about the eco-immunology of wild mice. Particular questions and potential projects relate to investigating the nature and diversity of microparasite infections of wild mice, which are not known, including studying the diversity of host immune cell populations (including, for example, the diversity of T cell populations) in relation to this infection burden. You can find out more about our work at MarkViney.com