Parasites of the past: 90 years of change in parasitism for English sole

Welicky, Rachel L.; Preisser, Whitney C.; Leslie, Katie L.; Mastick, Natalie; Fiorenza, Evan A.; Maslenikov, Katherine P.; Tornabene, Luke; Kinsella, John; Wood, Chelsea L.

doi:10.1002/fee.2379

Cited by 9 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…The parasite taxa collected have both complex and direct life cycles and demonstrate no clear patterns of presence or absence corresponding to life-cycle type, host species use or higher taxonomic group. Similarly, with an exception for the Acanthocephala, Welicky et al (2021) found no correlation between life cycle or taxonomic group and changes in abundance of English Sole parasites. Future work should identify natural and anthropogenic disturbances and investigate the routes through which they alter parasite communities of English Sole in the Salish Sea.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…Please refer to Welicky et al . (2021) to see the analyses of changes in abundance for each taxon and higher taxonomic group. Whole species names are given in Table A1.…”

Section: Fig A1mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…May-Tec et al (2013) and Vidal-Martínez et al (2014) sampled parasites from a cichlid over an 8-and 5-year period, respectively, to understand the influence of rainfall and temperature on parasite prevalence, abundance and aggregation. While Howard et al (2019) and Welicky et al (2021) measured parasite abundance in English Sole (Parophrys vetulus) over 90 years, to our knowledge, there are no temporally comparable studies investigating historical trends in parasite diversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parasite communities in English Sole (Parophrys vetulus) have changed in composition but not richness in the Salish Sea, Washington, USA since 1930

et al. 2022

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Earth is rapidly losing free-living species. Is the same true for parasitic species? To reveal temporal trends in biodiversity, historical data are needed, but often such data do not exist for parasites. Here, parasite communities of the past were reconstructed by identifying parasites in fluid-preserved specimens held in natural history collections. Approximately 2500 macroparasites were counted from 109 English Sole (Parophrys vetulus) collected between 1930 and 2019 in the Salish Sea, Washington, USA. Alpha and beta diversity were measured to determine if and how diversity changed over time. Species richness of parasite infracommunities and community dispersion did not vary over time, but community composition of decadal component communities varied significantly over the study period. Community dissimilarity also varied: prior to the mid-20th century, parasites shifted in abundance in a seemingly stochastic manner and, after this time period, a canalization of community change was observed, where species' abundances began to shift in consistent directions. Further work is needed to elucidate potential drivers of these changes and to determine if these patterns are present in the parasite communities of other fishes of the Salish Sea.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…Please refer to Welicky et al . (2021) to see the analyses of changes in abundance for each taxon and higher taxonomic group. Whole species names are given in Table A1.…”

Section: Fig A1mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parasite communities in English Sole (Parophrys vetulus) have changed in composition but not richness in the Salish Sea, Washington, USA since 1930

et al. 2022

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“…We sourced fluid-preserved fish specimens from natural history collections across North America and performed a modified parasitological dissection that minimizes damage to these irreplaceable specimens while maximizing our ability to visually detect parasites ( 18 , 38 ). For each host species–decade combination between 1920 and 2020, we dissected a median of 9.5 fish individuals (range = 0 to 20; SI Appendix , Table S2 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A reconstruction of parasite burden reveals one century of climate-associated parasite decline

Wood

Welicky

Preisser

et al. 2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Long-term data allow ecologists to assess trajectories of population abundance. Without this context, it is impossible to know whether a taxon is thriving or declining to extinction. For parasites of wildlife, there are few long-term data—a gap that creates an impediment to managing parasite biodiversity and infectious threats in a changing world. We produced a century-scale time series of metazoan parasite abundance and used it to test whether parasitism is changing in Puget Sound, United States, and, if so, why. We performed parasitological dissection of fluid-preserved specimens held in natural history collections for eight fish species collected between 1880 and 2019. We found that parasite taxa using three or more obligately required host species—a group that comprised 52% of the parasite taxa we detected—declined in abundance at a rate of 10.9% per decade, whereas no change in abundance was detected for parasites using one or two obligately required host species. We tested several potential mechanisms for the decline in 3+-host parasites and found that parasite abundance was negatively correlated with sea surface temperature, diminishing at a rate of 38% for every 1 °C increase. Although the temperature effect was strong, it did not explain all variability in parasite burden, suggesting that other factors may also have contributed to the long-term declines we observed. These data document one century of climate-associated parasite decline in Puget Sound—a massive loss of biodiversity, undetected until now.

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“…Parasite taxonomic identifications should be as highly resolved as possible and—because most of these specimens have been fixed in formalin—we often cannot rely on sequencing to achieve this. In the ‘parasites of the past’ project, we stained, mounted and cleared parasites to better visualize diagnostic features and we partnered with a parasite taxonomist to achieve high taxonomic resolution through strictly morphological identification (Welicky et al, 2021; Wood et al, in review). Derivative specimens (e.g.…”

Section: The Constraints and Responsibilities Of Extracting Parasitol...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Is the world wormier than it used to be? We'll never know without natural history collections

Wood

Vanhove

2022

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Many disease ecologists and conservation biologists believe that the world is wormier than it used to be—that is, that parasites are increasing in abundance through time. This argument is intuitively appealing. Ecologists typically see parasitic infections, through their association with disease, as a negative endpoint, and are accustomed to attributing negative outcomes to human interference in the environment, so it slots neatly into our worldview that habitat destruction, biodiversity loss and climate change should have the collateral consequence of causing outbreaks of parasites. But surprisingly, the hypothesis that parasites are increasing in abundance through time remains entirely untested for the vast majority of wildlife parasite species. Historical data on parasites are nearly impossible to find, which leaves no baseline against which to compare contemporary parasite burdens. If we want to know whether the world is wormier than it used to be, there is only one major research avenue that will lead to an answer: parasitological examination of specimens preserved in natural history collections. Recent advances demonstrate that, for many specimen types, it is possible to extract reliable data on parasite presence and abundance. There are millions of suitable specimens that exist in collections around the world. When paired with contemporaneous environmental data, these parasitological data could even point to potential drivers of change in parasite abundance, including climate, pollution or host density change. We explain how to use preserved specimens to address pressing questions in parasite ecology, give a few key examples of how collections‐based parasite ecology can resolve these questions, identify some pitfalls and workarounds, and suggest promising areas for research. Natural history specimens are ‘parasite time capsules’ that give ecologists the opportunity to test whether infectious disease is on the rise and to identify what forces might be driving these changes over time. This approach will facilitate major advances in a new sub‐discipline: the historical ecology of parasitism.

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Parasites of the past: 90 years of change in parasitism for English sole

Cited by 9 publications

References 49 publications

Parasite communities in English Sole (Parophrys vetulus) have changed in composition but not richness in the Salish Sea, Washington, USA since 1930

Parasite communities in English Sole (Parophrys vetulus) have changed in composition but not richness in the Salish Sea, Washington, USA since 1930

A reconstruction of parasite burden reveals one century of climate-associated parasite decline

Is the world wormier than it used to be? We'll never know without natural history collections

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