Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-7jgsp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-30T16:07:43.974Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Habitat and transmission – effect of tidal level and upstream host density on metacercarial load in an intertidal bivalve

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2006

D. W. THIELTGES
D. W. THIELTGES
Affiliation:
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Wadden Sea Station Sylt, Hafenstrasse 43, 25992 List, Germany Present address: Department of Marine Ecology, Institute of Biological Sciences, University of Aarhus, Finlandsgade 14, DK-8200 Aarhus, Denmark. Tel: +45 89423188. Fax: +45 89424387. E-mail: dthieltges@yahoo.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Transmission of parasites may be mediated by their habitat, consisting of abiotic and biotic components. I investigated the effect of 2 important habitat components in intertidal ecosystems, tidal level (abiotic) and density of upstream hosts (biotic), on the transmission of trematode cercariae to cockle (Cerastoderma edule) hosts. A field survey showed no general trend in metacercarial loads of cockles regarding tidal level but species-dependent reactions. Parasites originating from Littorina littorea (Himasthla elongata, Renicola roscovita) showed highest infection levels in the low intertidal while parasites originating from Hydrobia ulvae (H. continua, H. interrupta) showed highest infection levels in the mid-intertidal. This reflected the density of upstream hosts at both tidal levels and positive relationships between the density of upstream hosts and metacercarial load in cockles suggested the biotic habitat component to be the dominant factor in transmission. This was confirmed by a field experiment, manipulating tidal level and the density of infected upstream snail hosts. While tidal level had no significant effect on the number of metacercariae of H. elongata acquired by cockles, the effect of upstream host density was strong. In conclusion, although tidal level usually is a very important abiotic habitat component in intertidal ecosystems leading to conspicuous zonation patterns in free-living organisms, it seems of minor importance for trematode transmission. In contrast, the biotic component upstream host density is suggested to be the dominant predictor for trematode transmission to second intermediate hosts. Assessing the relative importance of abiotic and biotic habitat components in transmission is vital for the understanding of transmission processes in the field.

Keywords

parasitismtrematodesCerastoderma edulecocklehabitat componentssecond intermediate host

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 134 , Issue 4 , April 2007 , pp. 599 - 605
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Bertness, M. D. ( 1999). The Ecology of Atlantic Shorelines. Sinauer Associates Inc., Sunderland.
de Montaudouin, X., Wegeberg, A. M., Jensen, K. T. and Sauriau, P. G. ( 1998). Infection characteristics of Himasthla elongata cercariae in cockles as a function of water current. Diseases of Aquatic Organisms 34, 63–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Montaudouin, X., de Kisielewski, I., Bachelet, G. and Desclaux, C. ( 2000). A census of macroparasites in an intertidal bivalve community, Arcachon Bay, France. Oceanologica Acta 23, 453–468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fredensborg, B. L., Mouritsen, K. N. and Poulin, R. ( 2006). Relating bird host distribution and spatial heterogeneity in trematode infections in an intertidal snail—from small to large scale. Marine Biology 149, 275–283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grosholz, E. D. ( 1994). The effects of host genotype and spatial distribution on trematode parasitism in a bivalve population. Ecology 48, 1514–1524.Google Scholar
Hechinger, R. F. and Lafferty, K. D. ( 2005). Host diversity begets parasite diversity: bird final hosts and trematodes in snail intermediate hosts. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B 272, 1059–1066.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krakau, M., Thieltges, D. W. and Reise, K. ( 2006). Native parasites in introduced bivalves of the North Sea. Biological Invasion (in the Press). DOI 10.1007/S10530-005-4734-8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lim S. S. L. and Green, R. H. ( 1991). The relationship between parasite load, crawling behaviour, and growth rate of Macoma balthica (L.) (Mollusca, Pelecypoda) from Hudson Bay, Canada. Canadian Journal of Zoology 69, 2202–2208.Google Scholar
Morley, N. J. and Lewis, J. W. ( 2004). Free-living endohelminths: the influence of multiple Factors. Trends in Parasitology 20, 114–115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mouritsen, K. N. and Poulin, R. ( 2002). Parasitism, community structure and biodiversity in intertidal ecosystems. Parasitology 124, S101–S117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mouritsen, K. N., McKechnie, S., Meenken, E., Toynbee, J. L. and Poulin, R. ( 2003). Spatial heterogeneity in parasite loads in the New Zealand cockle: the importance of host condition and density. Journal of the Marine Biological Association, UK 83, 307–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostfeld, R. S., Glass, G. E. and Keesing, F. ( 2005). Spatial epidemiology: an emerging (or re-emerging) discipline. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20, 328–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pietrock, M. and Marcogliese, D. J. ( 2002). Free-living endohelminth stages: at the mercy of environmental conditions. Trends in Parasitology 19, 293–299.Google Scholar
Poulin, R. ( 2006). Global warming and temperature-mediated increases in cercarial emergence in trematode species. Parasitology 132, 134–151.Google Scholar
Poulin, R. and Morand, S. ( 2004). Parasite Biodiversity. Smithsonian Books, Washington.
Poulin, R., Steeper, M. J. and Miller, A. A. ( 2000). Non-random patterns of host use by the different parasite species exploiting a cockle population. Parasitology 121, 289–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reise, K., Herre, E. and Sturm, M. ( 1989). Historical changes in the benthos of the Wadden Sea around the island of Sylt in the North Sea. Helgoländer Meeresuntersuchungen 43, 417–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schanz, A., Polte, P. and Asmus, H. ( 2002). Cascading effects of hydrodynamics on an epiphyte–grazer system in intertidal seagrass beds of the Wadden Sea. Marine Biology 141, 287–297.Google Scholar
Sousa, W. P. and Grosholz, E. D. ( 1990). The influence of habitat structure on the transmission of parasites. In Habitat Structure: the Physical Arrangement of Objects in Space ( ed. Bell, S. S., McCoy, E. D. and Mushinsky, H. R.), pp. 300–324. Chapman and Hall, London.
Thieltges, D. W. and Reise, K. ( 2006 a). Spatial heterogeneity in parasite infections at different spatial scales in an intertidal bivalve. Oecologia (in the Press). DOI 10.1007/S00442-006-0557-2.Google Scholar
Thieltges, D. W. and Reise, K. ( 2006 b). Metazoan parasites in intertidal cockles (Cerastoderma edule) from the northern Wadden Sea. Journal of Sea Research. DOI 10.1016/j.seares.2006.06.002.Google Scholar
Wilhelmsen, U. and Reise, K. ( 1994). Grazing on green algae by the periwinkle Littorina littorea in the Wadden Sea. Helgoländer Meeresuntersuchungen 48, 233–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar