Some like it hotter: trematode transmission under changing temperature conditions
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GLOBAL CHANGE ECOLOGY – ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Some like it hotter: trematode transmission under changing temperature conditions Christian Selbach1,2 · Robert Poulin1 Received: 26 March 2020 / Accepted: 3 November 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Climate change-related increases in temperature will influence the interactions between organisms, including the infection dynamics of parasites in ecosystems. The distribution and transmission of parasites are expected to increase with warmer temperature, but to what extent this will affect closely related parasite taxa living in sympatry is currently impossible to predict, due to our extremely limited understanding of the interspecific variation in transmission potential among parasite species in changing ecosystems. Here, we analyse the transmission patterns of four trematode species from the New Zealand mudsnail Potamopyrgus antipodarum with different life cycles and transmission strategies under two temperature scenarios, simulating current and future warmer temperatures. In a comparative experimental study, we investigated the effects of temperature on the productivity, movement and survival of the parasites’ transmission stages (cercariae) to quantify the net effect of temperature on their overall transmission potential. Our results show that increases in temperature positively affect cercarial transmission dynamics, yet these impacts varied considerably between the cercariae of different trematode species, depending on their host-searching behaviour. These different species-specific transmission abilities as well as the varying individual patterns of productivity, activity and longevity are likely to have far-reaching implications for disease dynamics in changing ecosystems, since increases in temperature can shift parasite community structure. Due to the parasites’ capacity to regulate the functioning of whole ecological communities and their potential impact as disease agents, understanding these species-specific parasite transmission traits remains a fundamental requirement to predict parasite dynamics under changing environmental conditions. Keywords Parasite · Diseases ecology · Global climate change · Aquatic ecosystems
Introduction Global warming poses serious threats for ecosystems on all continents and across oceans, and its impacts constitute a central challenge for current and future generations (IPCC 2014). Understanding and potentially predicting these changes remain major scientific tasks. Across all ecological systems, temperature significantly influences the strength and outcome of interactions between and among species Communicated by Lisa Belden. * Christian Selbach [email protected] 1
Department of Zoology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand
Department of Biology, Aquatic Biology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
2
(Araújo and Luoto 2007; Gilman et al. 2010; Traill et al. 2010; Woodward et al. 2010). The interactions between parasites and pathogens and their free-living host
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