Parasites as drivers of key processes in aquatic ecosystems: Facts and future directions

Sures, Bernd; Nachev, Milen; Pahl, Marc-Oliver; Grabner, Daniel; Selbach, Christian

doi:10.1016/j.exppara.2017.03.011

Cited by 46 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…These negative effects are often the main aspect of why parasites become a focus of researchers and of public awareness [2,[18][19][20][21][22][23]. However, when departing away from this medical or veterinarian perspective, parasites are involved in different ecological processes, drive ecosystem services, and may act as ecosystem engineers [24][25][26]. They regulate host population demographics, shape community structure affecting predation or the competitive interactions of their host populations, influence food web networks and consequently contribute to ecosystem stability and energy flow [25,27,28].…”

Section: Ecological Importance Of Parasitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This shows that parasites are able to enhance existing trophic interactions and facilitate new ones [35][36][37][38]. The ecological consequences of parasitism are more evident and documented for the so called "manipulative parasites" and "keystone parasites" [26,39]. Manipulative parasites induce phenotypic or behavioral changes that can render their hosts easy prey for the next host [33,40,41].…”

Section: Ecological Importance Of Parasitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Ecological Importance of Amphipod–Parasite Associations for Aquatic Ecosystems

Giari

Fano

Castaldelli

et al. 2020

Water

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Amphipods are a key component of aquatic ecosystems due to their distribution, abundance and ecological role. They also serve as hosts for many micro- and macro-parasites. The importance of parasites and the necessity to include them in ecological studies has been increasingly recognized in the last two decades by ecologists and conservation biologists. Parasites are able to alter survival, growth, feeding, mobility, mating, fecundity and stressors’ response of their amphipod hosts. In addition to their modulating effects on host population size and dynamics, parasites affect community structure and food webs in different ways: by increasing the susceptibility of amphipods to predation, by quantitatively and qualitatively changing the host diet, and by modifying competitive interactions. Human-induced stressors such as climate change, pollution and species introduction that affect host–parasite equilibrium, may enhance or reduce the infection effects on hosts and ecosystems. The present review illustrates the importance of parasites for ecosystem processes using examples from aquatic environments and amphipods as a host group. As seen from the literature, amphipod–parasite systems are likely a key component of ecological processes, but more quantitative data from natural populations and field evidence are necessary to support the results obtained by experimental research.

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Section: Ecological Importance Of Parasitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ecological Importance Of Parasitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ecological Importance of Amphipod–Parasite Associations for Aquatic Ecosystems

Giari

Fano

Castaldelli

et al. 2020

Water

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In general, parasites are widespread in aquatic environments, and often interact with various ecosystem stressors, both at the population and the community level of the hosts they infect (Sures 2008;Nachev and Sures 2015;Vidal-Martínez and Wunderlich 2017). At the same time, parasites have been shown to have profound impacts on aquatic ecosystems by numerous direct and indirect effects on host populations and communities (Mouritsen and Poulin 2009;Sures et al 2017). For instance, as reported by Wood et al (2007), grazing activity of infected Littorina sp.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Freshening rather than warming drives trematode transmission from periwinkles to mussels

et al. 2020

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In the Western Baltic Sea, climate change is happening at much faster rate than in most other seas and organisms are additionally exposed to a steep and variable salinity gradient. Climate change has previously been shown to affect parasite transmission in other marine ecosystems, yet little is known about potential effects of warming and desalination on parasite-host interactions. In laboratory experiments, we determined the combined effects of projected seawater warming and freshening on the emergence, activity, survival, and infectivity of cercariae (free-swimming infectious stage) of the trematode Himasthla elongata (Mehlis 1831), shed from its first intermediate host, the periwinkle Littorina littorea (Linnaeus 1758), in the Baltic Sea. We also assessed the susceptibility of the second intermediate host, the mussel Mytilus edulis Linnaeus, 1758, to cercarial infections. Generally, salinity was the main driver, particularly of cercarial activity, infectivity, and mussel susceptibility to infection. At the lowest salinity (13), cercariae were 50% less active compared to the highest salinity (19). Infection success and host susceptibility followed a similar pattern, with 47% and 43% less metacercariae (encysted stage) present at salinity 13 than at salinity 19, respectively. In contrast, effects of simulated warming were found only for cercarial survival, with cercarial longevity being higher at 19 than at 23 °C. No significant interactions between temperature and salinity were found. In contrast to the literature, the results suggest that a climate change-driven freshening (partly also warming) may lead to a general decline of marine trematodes, with possible beneficial effects for the involved hosts.

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“…, Sures et al. , Frainer et al. ), and some ecosystem effects have recently been quantified for particular systems (Thieltges et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parasite and pathogen effects on ecosystem processes: A quantitative review

et al. 2020

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Pathogens and parasites (henceforth “pathogens”) can make up a large percentage of the biomass found in ecosystems, and therefore, their impacts on ecosystem processes should be prominent. Pathogens influence ecosystem processes by affecting the abundance or phenotype of hosts and through direct contributions to ecosystem production. However, there has been little quantitative synthesis of the relative effect sizes of these impacts on ecosystem processes. This study presents a systematic review and meta‐analysis of pathogen effects on primary production, secondary production, and biogeochemical cycles. We find that the effects of pathogens on ecosystem processes were greater where pathogens influenced host or community abundance or biomass than when they influenced phenotypes. Pathogen impacts on primary production were larger than on secondary production or biogeochemical cycles. By contrast, we detected no general differences in effect sizes across host or pathogen taxon or ecosystem type (terrestrial vs. aquatic). While we have found potential evidence of publication bias against negative results, a well‐known issue in meta‐analyses, our work nonetheless shows that the available literature under‐represents some taxa and geographic regions. To better understand the extent and magnitude of pathogen impacts on ecosystem processes, future research is needed in four areas. First, research is needed on the most understudied systems, including bacteria and viruses, as well as tropical ecosystems. A second priority is research seeking to understand how key components of ecosystem variation, including age (time of ecological continuity), productivity, and species diversity and composition, may interact to mediate pathogen impacts. Third, we suggest expanding on work examining how pathogen effects are influenced by climate change, species introductions, deforestation, and other human impacts. Fourth, we expect that host coinfection influences ecosystem processes in ways that cannot always be predicted based on studies of single infections. To enable others to build on this work, we make available the data we extracted from the literature, with the code for computing effect sizes.

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Parasites as drivers of key processes in aquatic ecosystems: Facts and future directions

Cited by 46 publications

References 95 publications

The Ecological Importance of Amphipod–Parasite Associations for Aquatic Ecosystems

The Ecological Importance of Amphipod–Parasite Associations for Aquatic Ecosystems

Freshening rather than warming drives trematode transmission from periwinkles to mussels

Parasite and pathogen effects on ecosystem processes: A quantitative review

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