Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-29-2007
Publication Title
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Department
Department of Biological Sciences
Abstract
Parasites often play an important role in modifying the physiology and behavior of their hosts and may, consequently, mediate the influence hosts have on other components of an ecological community. Along the northern Atlantic coast of North America, the dominant herbivorous snail Littorina littorea structures rocky intertidal communities through strong grazing pressure and is frequently parasitized by the digenean trematode Cryptocotyle lingua. We hypothesized that the effects of parasitism on host physiology would induce behavioral changes in L. littorea, which in turn would modulate L. littorea's influence on intertidal community composition. Specifically, we hypothesized that C. lingua infection would alter the grazing rate of L. littorea and, consequently, macroalgal communities would develop differently in the presence of infected versus uninfected snails. Our results show that uninfected snails consumed 40% more ephemeral macroalgal biomass than infected snails in the laboratory, probably because the digestive system of infected snails is compromised by C. lingua infection. In the field, this weaker grazing by infected snails resulted in significantly greater expansion of ephemeral macroalgal cover relative to grazing by uninfected snails. By decreasing the per-capita grazing rate of the dominant herbivore, C. lingua indirectly affects the composition of the macroalgal community and may in turn affect other species that depend on macroalgae for resources or habitat structure. In light of the abundance of parasites across systems, we suggest that, through trait-mediated indirect effects, parasites may be a common determinant of structure in ecological communities.
DOI
10.1073/pnas.0700062104
Original Citation
Wood CL, Byers JE, Cottingham KL, Altman I, Donahue MJ, Blakeslee AM. Parasites alter community structure. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 May 29;104(22):9335-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0700062104. Epub 2007 May 18. PMID: 17517667; PMCID: PMC1890495.
Dartmouth Digital Commons Citation
Wood, Chelsea L.; Byers, James E.; Cottingham, Kathryn L.; and Altman, Irit, "Parasites Alter Community Structure" (2007). Dartmouth Scholarship. 1429.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/facoa/1429
Included in
Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Commons, Microbial Physiology Commons, Physiology Commons
