Parasites alter the topology of a stream food web across seasons

Hernandez, Alexander D.; Sukhdeo, M. V. K.

doi:10.1007/s00442-008-0999-9

Cited by 57 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…Previous studies have incorporated parasites into food webs as participants or consumers in trophic interactions (Huxham et al 1995;Thompson et al 2005;LaVerty et al 2006a, b;Hernandez and Sukhdeo 2008;Amundsen et al 2009). None to date, however, have used parasites solely as indicators of trophic interactions independent of or in conjunction with diet, although, knowledge of parasite life cycles was used to infer a limited number of links in the Ythan estuary and Loch Levan (Huxham et al 1995), Carpinteria Salt Marsh (LaVerty et al 2006a, New Jersey Pinelands (Hernandez and Sukhdeo 2008) and Takvatn (Amundsen et al 2009) food webs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…None to date, however, have used parasites solely as indicators of trophic interactions independent of or in conjunction with diet, although, knowledge of parasite life cycles was used to infer a limited number of links in the Ythan estuary and Loch Levan (Huxham et al 1995), Carpinteria Salt Marsh (LaVerty et al 2006a, New Jersey Pinelands (Hernandez and Sukhdeo 2008) and Takvatn (Amundsen et al 2009) food webs. The overall goal of our study was to evaluate the use of parasites alone or together with diet in the topological construction of food webs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Note that basic life cycles may be inferred from phylogenetic life history patterns, so that even if life cycles are not known explicitly, trophic relationships may still be derived with conWdence. It is important to note that, herein, parasites are not considered consumers as in recent studies (Thompson et al 2005;Arias-González and Morand 2006;LaVerty et al 2006a, b;Hernandez and Sukhdeo 2008;Amundsen et al 2009), but rather solely as trophic indicators. Only Wsh where n¸15 were included in the statistical analyses and trophic comparisons.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Most previous studies have added one or two parasites simply as another link at a separate trophic level to a particular food web (reviewed in Marcogliese and Cone 1997), although in an elegant and detailed study Huxham et al (1995) examined and tested food web properties of the Ythan estuary with and without parasites and showed that incorporating parasites has important eVects. More recently, Thompson et al (2005), Arias-González and Morand (2006), LaVerty et al (2006a, b), Hernandez and Sukhdeo (2008) and Amundsen et al (2009) showed that parasites greatly aVect food web properties and trophic eYciency, LaVerty et al (2006b) in fact demonstrating that parasites dominate food web interactions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

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Vertebrate diets derived from trophically transmitted fish parasites in the Bothnian Bay

2009

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Parasites that are transmitted through predator-prey interactions may be used as indicators of trophic relationships between organisms. Yet, they are rarely used as such in the construction of topological (predator-prey) food webs. We constructed food webs of vertebrate trophic interactions using observed diet alone, trophically transmitted parasites alone, and the combination of the two based on data from 31 species of fish from the Bothnian Bay, Finland. The fish food web contained 530 links derived from observed diet, 724 links inferred from parasitism, and 1,058 links calculated from a combination of both stomach contents and parasites. This sub-web constructed from stomach contents had a mean of 17.1 links per fish species, while that using parasites had 23.4 links per fish. Combining the two diet indicators yielded 34.1 links per fish species, illustrating the complementarity of the two methods. Mean number of prey species per fish species was 12.5 using observed diet items, 15.8 using parasites, and 24.5 using both measures together. Mean number of predators per fish species was 7.4 using observed diet, 11.7 using parasites and 15.0 using both. A positive correlation was found between the mean number of parasites and the number of prey taxa in the diet among the fishes. Omnivorous fish had the highest diversity of both parasite species and prey items, while benthophagous fish had among the lowest. Mean total abundance and mean total prevalence of parasites correlated positively with fish size, with piscivores being the largest with the highest abundance and prevalence, while planktivores and benthivores had the lowest. Trophically transmitted parasites may be used to help construct vertebrate sub-webs and derive information about food web processes. Parasites alone provided equivalent if not more information than observed diet. However, resolution is improved by using parasites and observed diet together.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

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Vertebrate diets derived from trophically transmitted fish parasites in the Bothnian Bay

2009

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“…Today, however, integrating parasites and infectious diseases into trophic networks is at the center of current research into food web structure and dynamics (Lafferty et al 2008;Poulin 2010). The inclusion of parasites as full participants in food webs can change key network metrics such as connectance, food chain length or linkage density (Huxham et al 1995;Thompson et al 2005;Hernandez and Sukhdeo 2008;Amundsen et al 2009). In addition, parasite transmission routes can be mapped onto food webs, since trophically transmitted helminth parasites follow trophic links within food web networks (Sukhdeo and Hernandez 2005;Sukhdeo 2010;Poulin 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Body size, trophic level, and the use of fish as transmission routes by parasites

Poulin

Leung

2011

Oecologia

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Within food webs, trophically transmitted helminth parasites use predator-prey links for their own transfer from intermediate prey hosts, in which they occur as larval or juvenile stages, to predatory definitive hosts, in which they reach maturity. In large taxa that can be used as intermediate and/or definitive hosts, such as fish, a host species' position within a trophic network should determine whether its parasite fauna consists mostly of adult or larval helminths, since vulnerability to predation determines an animal's role in predator-prey links. Using a large database on the helminth parasites of 303 fish species, we tested whether the proportion of parasite species in a host that occur as larval or juvenile stages is best explained by their trophic level or by their body size. Independent of fish phylogeny or habitat, only fish body length emerged as a significant predictor of the proportion of parasites in a host that occur as larval stages from our multivariate analyses. On average, the proportion of larval helminth taxa in fish shorter than 20 cm was twice as high as that for fish over 100 cm in length. This is consistent with the prediction that small fishes, being more vulnerable to predation, make better hosts for larval parasites. However, trophic level and body length are strongly correlated among fish species, and they may have separate though confounded effects on the parasite fauna exploiting a given species. Helminths show varying levels of host specificity toward their intermediate host when the latter is the downstream host involved in trophic transmission toward an upstream definitive host. Given this broad physiological compatibility of many helminths with fish hosts, our results indicate that fish body length, as a proxy for vulnerability to predators, is a better predictor of their use by helminth larvae than their trophic level based on diet content.

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The worm's eye view of community ecology

Anderson¹,

Sukhdeo²

2016

A Century of Parasitology

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The study of parasites in the context of community level organization, either as parasites embedded within host communities, or as parasite communities themselves, is now quite prevalent in parasitology and ecology today. However, this was not always the case. In terms of publications, there was almost no consideration of parasite interactions at the community level for most of the first half of the last century. Papers in The Journal of Parasitology by Clark Read (1951) and John Holmes (1961) were the defining contributions to the beginning of the field, and the ideas elaborated by these two parasitologists still inspire current debates on parasite community structure today. There are several probable explanations for why investigation of parasite communities was not popular during the early part of the century. Most likely, it was related to funding sources, and the strong biomedical rubric that has guided parasitological studies for most of the last century. The intensity of focus on treatment and control of parasites of medical and veterinary importance often resulted in indifference to the natural and evolutionary histories of the parasites. Fortunately, this situation has changed, and there has been an exponential growth of ideas based on ecological and evolutionary theory, especially since the beginning of this century. We are now entering into areas of inquiry that the early investigators probably never dreamed of. For example, it was only in 1997 that "Food webs: A plea for parasites" by Marcogliese and Cone (1997) made eloquent arguments for why parasites should be included in studies of food

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Parasites alter the topology of a stream food web across seasons

Cited by 57 publications

References 62 publications

Vertebrate diets derived from trophically transmitted fish parasites in the Bothnian Bay

Vertebrate diets derived from trophically transmitted fish parasites in the Bothnian Bay

Body size, trophic level, and the use of fish as transmission routes by parasites

The worm's eye view of community ecology

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