Pathogen priming alters host transmission potential and predictors of transmissibility in a wild songbird species

ABSTRACT Pathogen reinfections occur widely, but the extent to which reinfected hosts contribute to ongoing transmission is often unknown despite its implications for host-pathogen dynamics. House finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) acquire partial protection from initial exposure to the bacterial pathogen Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG), with hosts readily reinfected with homologous or heterologous strains on short timescales. However, the extent to which reinfected hosts contribute to MG transmission has not been tested. We used three pathogen priming treatments—none, intermediate (repeated low-dose priming), or high (single high-dose priming)—to test how prior pathogen priming alters the likelihood of transmission to a cagemate during index bird reinfection with a homologous or heterologous MG strain. Relative to unprimed control hosts, the highest priming level strongly reduced maximum pathogen loads and transmission success of index birds during reinfections. Reinfections with the heterologous strain, previously shown to be more virulent and transmissible than the homologous strain used, resulted in higher pathogen loads within high-primed index birds and showed higher overall transmission success regardless of host priming treatment. This suggests that inherent differences in strain transmissibility are maintained in primed hosts, leading to the potential for ongoing transmission during reinfections. Finally, among individuals, transmission was most likely from hosts harboring higher within-host pathogen loads. However, associations between disease severity and transmission probability were dependent on a given bird’s priming treatment. Overall, our results indicate that reinfections can result in ongoing transmission, particularly where reinfections result from a highly transmissible strain, with potential implications for virulence evolution.IMPORTANCEAs COVID-19 dramatically illustrated, humans and other animals can become infected with the same pathogen multiple times. Because individuals already have defenses against pathogens that their immune systems encountered before, reinfections are likely less contagious to others, but this is rarely directly tested. We used a songbird species and two strains of its common bacterial pathogen to study how contagious hosts are when their immune systems have some degree of prior experience with a pathogen. We found that reinfected hosts are not as contagious as initially infected ones. However, the more transmissible of the two strains, which also causes more harm to its hosts, was able to multiply more readily than the other strain within reinfected hosts and was more contagious in both reinfected and first-infected hosts. This suggests that reinfections might favor more harmful pathogen strains that are better able to overcome immune defenses.