Are there fitness costs of adaptive pyrethroid resistance in the amphipod, Hyalella azteca?

Pyrethroid-resistant Hyalella azteca with voltage-gated sodium channel mutations have been identified at multiple locations throughout California. In December 2013, H. azteca were collected from Mosher Slough in Stockton, CA, USA, a site with reported pyrethroid (primarily bifenthrin and cyfluthrin) sediment concentrations approximately twice the 10-d LC50 for laboratory-cultured H. azteca. These H. azteca were shipped to Southern Illinois University Carbondale and have been maintained in pyrethroid-free culture since collection. Even after 22 months in culture, resistant animals had approximately 53 times higher tolerance to permethrin than non-resistant laboratory-cultured H. azteca. Resistant animals held in culture also lacked the wild-type allele at the L925 locus, and had non-synonymous substitutions that resulted in either a leucine-isoleucine or leucine-valine substitution. Additionally, animals collected from the same site nearly three years later were again resistant to the pyrethroid permethrin. When resistant animals were compared to non-resistant animals, they showed lower reproductive capacity, lower upper thermal tolerance, and the data suggested greater sensitivity to, 4, 4'-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), copper (II) sulfate, and sodium chloride. Further testing of the greater heat and sodium chloride sensitivity of the resistant animals showed these effects to be unrelated to clade association. Fitness costs associated with resistance to pyrethroids are well documented in pest species (including mosquitoes, peach-potato aphids, and codling moths) and we believe that H. azteca collected from Mosher Slough also have fitness costs associated with the developed resistance.