Differentially susceptible host fishes exhibit similar chemo-attractiveness to a common coral reef Ectoparasite
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Differentially susceptible host fishes exhibit similar chemo-attractiveness to a common coral reef Ectoparasite Clayton Vondriska 1,2 & Danielle L. Dixson 3 & Amber J. Packard 4 & Paul C. Sikkel 1,5 Received: 13 April 2020 / Accepted: 24 July 2020 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Gnathiid isopods are common crustacean parasites that inhabit all oceans from shorelines to depths of over 3000 m and use chemical cues to find their marine fish hosts. While gnathiids are host-generalists, hosts vary in their susceptibility to infestation. However, the mechanisms that mediate differential susceptibility are unknown. Here we used a combination of field and laboratory experiments to investigate if the chemical attractiveness of hosts explains differences in susceptibility of Caribbean reef fishes to infestation by a common Caribbean gnathiid isopod, Gnathia marleyi. We showed that while G. marleyi can detect and locate hosts using only chemical cues, they do not exhibit a preference for chemical cues produced by more susceptible fish species. We conclude that species-specific chemical cues are not the main mechanism driving differences in host susceptibility to gnathiid isopod infestation and that visual or post-attachment factors such as ease of obtaining a blood meal are likely mediators. Keywords Gnathiid isopods . Parasite . Chemical cues . Host attraction . Host finding . Caribbean
1 Introduction Many terrestrial ectoparasites, including well-known species that are vectors of diseases, rely on chemical cues at some point in their life cycles to locate their host, including mosquitoes (Gillies 1980; Takken and Knols 2010), ticks (Takken and Knols 2010), botflies (Cepeda-Palacios et al. 2011), and fleas (Cox et al. 1999: Bitam et al. 2010). Conversely, the role chemical cues play in host-finding in the marine system is unknown for many species despite aquatic hosts having a greater community richness and more species of parasite per Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13199-020-00700-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Paul C. Sikkel [email protected] 1
Department of Environmental Sciences, Arkansas State University, State University, AR 72467, USA
2
Operation Wallacea, Wallace House, Old Bolingbroke, Spilsby, Lincolnshire PE23 4EX, UK
3
School of Marine Science and Policy, University of Delaware, Lewes, DE 19958, USA
4
Center for Marine & Environmental Studies, University of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands 00802, USA
5
Water Research Group, Unit of Environmental Sciences, North-West University, Potchefstroom 2520, South Africa
host than terrestrial hosts (Holmes 1990; Rohde et al. 1995). The few species that have been extensively studied in this regard have a direct and obvious cost to humans, such as Lepeophtheirus salmonis, which infests commercially important salmon (Johnson et al. 2004; Liu and Vanhauwaer Bjelland 2014), and is attracted to several chemical compounds released f
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