Received: 20 April 2017 | Revised: 2 June 2017 | Accepted: 5 June 2017 DOI: 10.1111/mec.14211 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Role of parasite transmission in promoting inbreeding: I. Infection intensities drive individual parasite selfing rates Jillian T. Detwiler1 | Isabel C. Caballero2 | Charles D. Criscione2 1Department of Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Abstract Canada Among parasitic organisms, inbreeding has been implicated as a potential driver of 2Department of Biology, Texas A&M host–parasite co-evolution, drug-resistance evolution and parasite diversification. University, College Station, TX, USA Yet, fundamental topics about how parasite life histories impact inbreeding remain Correspondence to be addressed. In particular, there are no direct selfing-rate estimates for her- Charles D. Criscione, Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, maphroditic parasites in nature. Our objectives were to elucidate the mating system USA. of a parasitic flatworm in nature and to understand how aspects of parasite trans- Email:
[email protected] mission could influence the selfing rates of individual parasites. If there is random Funding information mating within hosts, the selfing rates of individual parasites would be an inverse Texas A and M University, Grant/Award Number: Startup Funds; National Science power function of their infection intensities. We tested whether selfing rates devi- Foundation, Grant/Award Number: ated from within-host random mating expectations with the tapeworm Oochoristica DEB1145508 javaensis. In doing so, we generated, for the first time in nature, individual selfing- rate estimates of a hermaphroditic flatworm parasite. There was a mixed-mating system where tapeworms self-mated more than expected with random mating.