Posts Tagged 'platyhelminthes'

Complex and interactive effects of ocean acidification and warming on the life span of a marine trematode parasite

Published 28 October 2019 Science Closed
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Highlights

• Functional and absolute life spans of cercariae were differentially affected by simulated ocean acidification and warming.

• High temperature negatively affected functional life span, suggesting warming may reduce the temporal transmission window.

• Warming and acidification reduced absolute life span, which may modify the role of cercariae as a food resource in future.

• The effect of acidification on cercarial life span was highly dependent on temperature.

Abstract

Human activities have caused an increase in atmospheric CO2 over the last 250 years, leading to unprecedented rates of change in seawater pH and temperature. These global scale processes are now commonly referred to as ocean acidification and warming (OAW), and have the potential to substantially alter the physiological performance of many marine organisms. It is vital that the effects of OAW on marine organisms are explored so that we can predict how marine communities may change in future. In particular, the effect of OAW on host-parasite dynamics is poorly understood, despite the ecological importance of these relationships. Here, we explore the response of one himasthlid trematode, Himasthla sp., an abundant and broadly distributed species of marine parasite, to combinations of elevated temperature and pCO2 that represent physiological extremes, pre-industrial conditions, and end of century predictions. Specifically, we quantified the life span of the free-living cercarial stage under elevated temperature and pCO2, focussing our research on functional life span (the time cercariae spend actively swimming) and absolute life span (the period before death). We found that the effects of temperature and pCO2 were complex and interactive. Overall, increased temperature negatively affected functional and absolute life span, e.g. across all pCO2 treatments the average time to 50% cessation of active swimming was approximately 8 h at 5°C, 6 h at 15°C, 4 h at 25°C, and 2 h at 40°C. The effect of pCO2, which significantly affected absolute life span, was highly variable across temperature treatments. These results strongly suggest that OAW may alter the transmission success of trematode cercariae, and potentially reduce the input of cercariae to marine zooplankton. Either outcome could substantially alter the community structure of coastal marine systems.

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Role of temperature and carbonate system variability on a host-parasite system: implications for the gigantism hypothesis

Published 1 April 2019 Science Closed
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Highlights

• Field and laboratory evidence support the parasite-induced gigantism hypothesis.

• Weight and thickness shell are influenced by the environmental factors and parasitism.

• Host-parasite interaction may be modulated by SST that interplay with carbonate system variability.

Abstract

Biological interactions and environmental constraints alter life-history traits, modifying organismal performances. Trematode parasites often impact their hosts by inducing parasitic castration, frequently correlated with increased body size in the host (i.e., gigantism hypothesis), which is postulated to reflect the re-allocation of energy released by the reduction in the reproductive process. In this study, we compared the effect of a trematode species on shell size and morphology in adult individuals of the intertidal mussels Perumytilus purpuratus (>20 mm) collected from two local populations of contrasting environmental regimes experienced in central-southern Chile. Our field data indicates that in both study locations, parasitized mussels evidenced higher body sizes (shell length, total weight and volume) as compared with non-parasitized. In addition, parasitized mussels from the southern location evidenced thinner shells than non-parasitized ones and those collected from central Chile, suggesting geographical variation in shell carbonate precipitation across intertidal habitats of the Chilean coast. In laboratory conditions, mussels collected from a local population in central Chile were exposed to two temperature treatments (12 and 18 °C). Parasitized mussels showed higher growth rates than non-parasitized, regardless of the seawater temperature treatments. However, the metabolic rate was not influenced by the parasite condition or the temperature treatments. Our field and laboratory results support the parasite-induced gigantism hypothesis, and suggest that both the thermal environment and geographic location explain only a portion of the increased body size, while the parasitic condition is the most plausible factor modulating the outcome of this host-parasite interaction.

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Temperature and pCO2 jointly affect the emergence and survival of cercariae from a snail host: implications for future parasitic infections in the Humboldt Current System

Published 21 November 2018 Science Closed
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Highlights

• This is the first known study evaluating combined temperature and pCO2 effects on cercarial life history traits.
• A trade-off between cercarial emergence and survival was observed at high water temperature.
• Combined effects of higher levels of temperature and pCO2 reduce cercarial survival.
• Combined levels of temperature and pCO2 produce species-specific responses in emergence of cercariae.
• It is suggested that infection of these trematode species in upwelling areas could increase in the future.

Abstract

Ocean warming and acidification are general consequences of rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations. In addition to future predictions, highly productive systems such as the Humboldt Current System (HCS) are characterized by important variations in both temperature and pCO2 level, but how these physical-chemical ocean changes might influence the transmission and survival of parasites has not been assessed. This study experimentally evaluated the effects of temperature (14, 18 and 25°C) and the combined effects of temperature (∼15 and 20°C) and pCO2 level (∼500 and 1400 microatmospheres (µatm) on the emergence and survival of two species of marine trematodes—Echinostomatidae gen. sp. and Philophthalmidae gen. sp.— both of which infect the intertidal snail Echinolittorina peruviana. Snails were collected from intertidal rocky pools in a year-round upwelling area of the northern HCS (23°S). Two experiments assessed parasite emergence and survival by simulating emersion-immersion tidal cycles. To assess parasite survival, 2 h old cercariae (on average) were taken from a pool of infected snails incubated at 20–25°C, and their mortality was recorded every 6 h until all the cercariae were dead. For both species, a trade-off between high emergence and low survival of cercariae was observed in the high temperature treatment. Species-specific responses to the combination of temperature and pCO2 levels were also observed: the emergence of Echinostomatidae cercariae was highest at 20°C regardless of the pCO2 levels. By contrast, the emergence of Philophthalmidae cercariae was highest at elevated pCO2 (15 and 20°C), suggesting that CO2 may react synergistically with temperature, increasing transmission success of this parasite in coastal ecosystems of the HCS where water temperature and pH are expected to decrease. In conclusion, our results suggest that integrating temperature-pCO2 interactions in parasite studies is essential for understanding the consequence of climate change in future marine ecosystem health.

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Impact of ocean acidification on the biogeochemistry and meiofaunal assemblage of carbonate-rich sediments: results from core incubations (Bay of Villefranche, NW Mediterranean Sea)

Published 18 May 2018 Science Closed
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Highlights

• A sediment incubation experiment to assess the effect of ocean acidification
• Porewater concentration gradients and sediment-water fluxes (DIC, TA, pH, Ca2+, O2)
• Ocean acidification impacts early diagenesis in carbonate-rich sediments.
• CaCO3 dissolution and the TA release may increase the buffering capacity of bottom water.

Abstract

Marine sediments are an important carbonate reservoir whose partial dissolution could buffer seawater pH decreases in the water column as a consequence of anthropogenic CO2 uptake by the ocean. This study investigates the impact of ocean acidification on the carbonate chemistry at the sediment-water interface (SWI) of shallow-water carbonate sediments. Twelve sediment cores were sampled at one station in the Bay of Villefranche (NW Mediterranean Sea). Four sediment cores were immediately analyzed in order to determine the initial distribution (T0) of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), total alkalinity (TA), pH and dissolved oxygen (O2) in the porewaters and to quantify sediment-water fluxes. Four other cores were kept submerged in the laboratory for 25 days with ambient seawater (pHT = 8.12) and the remaining four cores were incubated with acidified seawater (average pH offset of −0.68). This acidification experiment was carried out in an open-flow system, in the dark and at in-situ temperature (15 °C). Every three days, sediment-water fluxes (DIC, TA, pH, O2 and nutrients) were determined using a whole core 12-h incubation technique. Additionally, vertical O2 and pH microprofiles were regularly recorded in the first 2 cm of the sediment during the entire experiment. At the end of the experiment, TA, DIC and Ca2+ concentrations were analyzed in the porewaters and the abundance and taxonomic composition of meiofaunal organisms were assessed. The saturation states of the porewaters with respect to calcite and aragonite were over-saturated but under-saturated with respect to 12 mol% Mg-calcite, in both acidified and non-acidified treatments. The sediment-water fluxes of TA and DIC increased in the acidified treatment, likely as a consequence of enhanced carbonate dissolution. In contrast, the acidification of the overlying water did not significantly affect the O2 and nutrients fluxes at the SWI. Meiofaunal abundance decreased in both treatments over the duration of the experiment, but the organisms seemed unaffected by the acidification. Our results demonstrate that carbonate dissolution increased under acidified conditions but other parameters, such as microbial redox processes, were apparently not affected by the pH decrease, at least during the duration of our experiment. The dissolution of sedimentary carbonates and the associated release of TA may potentially buffer bottom water, depending on the intensity of the TA flux, the TA/DIC ratio, vertical mixing and, therefore, the residence time of bottom water. Under certain conditions, this process may mitigate the effect of ocean acidification on benthic ecosystems.

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Trematode infection modulates cockles biochemical response to climate change

Published 8 May 2018 Science Closed
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Highlights

• Higher infection success with water salinity decrease, warming and acidification
• Under lower water salinity, parasite infection reduced cockle antioxidant defence.
• Under higher water temperature, parasite infection increased cockle cellular damage.
• Under higher pCO2, parasite infection induced cockle metabolic depression.

Abstract

Resulting mainly from atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) build-up, seawater temperature rise is among the most important climate change related factors affecting costal marine ecosystems. Global warming will have implications on the water cycle, increasing the risk of heavy rainfalls and consequent freshwater input into the oceans but also increasing the frequency of extreme drought periods with consequent salinity increase. For Europe, by the end of the century, projections describe an increase of CO2 concentration up to 1120 ppm (corresponding to 0.5 pH unit decrease), an increase in the water temperature up to 4 °C and a higher frequency of heavy precipitation. These changes are likely to impact many biotic interactions, including host–parasite relationships which are particularly dependent on abiotic conditions. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that the edible cockle, Cerastoderma edule, exposed to different salinity, temperature and pH levels as proxy for climate change, modify the infection success of the trematode parasite Himasthla elongata, with consequences to cockles biochemical performance. The results showed that the cercariae infection success increased with acidification but higher biochemical alterations were observed in infected cockles exposed to all abiotic experimental stressful conditions tested. The present study suggested that changes forecasted by many models may promote the proliferation of the parasites infective stages in many ecosystems leading to enhanced transmission, especially on temperate regions, that will influence the geographical distribution of some diseases and, probably, the survival capacity of infected bivalves.

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Combined, short-term exposure to reduced seawater pH and elevated temperature induces community shifts in an intertidal meiobenthic assemblage

Published 7 November 2017 Science Closed
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In future global change scenarios the surface ocean will experience continuous acidification and rising temperatures. While effects of both stressors on marine, benthic communities are fairly well studied, consequences of the interaction of both factors remain largely unknown. We performed a short-term microcosm experiment exposing a soft-bottom community from an intertidal flat in the Westerscheldt estuary to two levels of seawater pH (ambient pHT = 7.9, reduced pHT = 7.5) and temperature (10 °C ambient and 13 °C elevated temperature) in a crossed design. After 8 weeks, meiobenthic community structure and nematode staining ratios, as a proxy for mortality, were compared between treatments and structural changes were related to the prevailing abiotic conditions in the respective treatments (pore water pHT, sediment grain size, total organic matter content, total organic carbon and nitrogen content, phytopigment concentrations and carbonate concentration). Pore water pHT profiles were significantly altered by pH and temperature manipulations and the combination of elevated temperature and reduced pH intensified the already more acidic porewater below the oxic zone. Meiofauna community composition was significantly affected by the combination of reduced pH and elevated temperature resulting in increased densities of predatory Platyhelminthes, reduced densities of Copepoda and Nauplii and complete absence of Gastrotricha compared to the experimental control. Furthermore, nematode staining ratio was elevated when seawater pH was reduced pointing towards reduced degradation rates of dead nematode bodies. The observed synergistic interactions of pH and temperature on meiobenthic communities and abiotic sediment characteristics underline the importance of multistressor experiments when addressing impacts of global change on the marine environment.

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Trematodes on acid: editorial comment on the feature article by Guilloteau et al.

Published 16 June 2016 Science Closed
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The field of ocean acidification (OA) research is moving rapidly, moving from studying first-order direct effects of lowered pH and carbonate ion concentration impinging directly upon organismal physiology to ask how species interactions are modified. How host–parasite interactions may be modulated by ocean acidification is currently largely unknown, in particular for macroparasites (=metazoan animal parasites). This is unfortunate, given that these interactions are among the strongest biological interactions in all ecosystems, while their food web role, in particular in coastal systems, is often neglected (but see Kuris et al. 2008).

Digenean trematodes are one of the most abundant and diversified groups of macroparasites worldwide, displaying a breathtaking diversity of two- or three-phasic life cycles (Galaktionov and Dobrovolskij 2003). Often, the first intermediate host is a mollusc (snail or bivalve), followed by a fish as second intermediate host, and a mammal or bird species as third and definitive host where sexual reproduction takes place. In this issue of Marine Biology, the study by Guilloteau et al. (2016) focused on the mollusc host phase where the infective parasite stages rapidly multiply via clonal proliferation, a critical step for generating millions of free-swimming cercariae. (…)

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Impacts of ocean acidification on multiplication and caste organisation of parasitic trematodes in their gastropod host

Published 18 April 2016 Science Closed
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Ocean acidification is predicted to impact the structure and function of all marine ecosystems in this century. As focus turns towards possible impacts on interactions among marine organisms, its effects on the biology and transmission potential of marine parasites must be evaluated. In the present study, we investigate two marine trematode species (Philophthalmus sp. and Parorchis sp., both in the family Philophthalmidae) infecting two marine gastropods. These trematodes are unusual in that their asexually multiplying stages within snails display a division of labour, with two distinct castes, a large-bodied morph producing infective stages and a smaller morph playing a defensive role against other competing parasites. Using a potentiometric ocean acidification simulation system, we test the impacts of acidified seawater (7.8 and 7.6 pH) on the production of free-living infective stages (cercariae), the size and survival of encysted resting stages (metacercariae), and the within-host division of labour measured as the ratio between numbers of the two morphs. In general, low pH conditions caused an increase in cercarial production and a reduction in metacercarial survival. The ratio of the two castes within snail hosts tended to shift towards more of the smaller defensive morphs under low pH. However, the observed effects of reduced pH were species specific and not always unimodal. These results suggest that ocean acidification can affect the biology of marine parasites and may also impact transmission success and parasite abundance of some trematodes, with possible consequences for marine communities and ecosystems.

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Lack of genetic variation in the response of a trematode parasite to ocean acidification

Published 21 January 2016 Science Closed
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Ocean acidification is already having measurable impacts on marine ecosystems. Intraspecific variation in the responses of marine organisms to ocean acidification can reveal genetic differences in tolerance to low pH conditions and determine the potential for a species to adapt to a changing environment. This study tests for the existence of genetic variation in both the transmission success of the trematode Maritrema novaezealandense to its second intermediate amphipod host, Paracalliope novizealandiae, and the extent of parasite-induced mortality in that host, in response to decreasing pH. Eight parasite genotypes were tested in a custom-built ocean acidification simulation system, at 8.1 pH (current ocean conditions) and under conditions of 7.4 pH (worst-case scenario future prediction). The parasites had significantly higher infection success in the more acidic treatment, but there was no significant difference among genotypes in how infection success was affected by pH. In contrast, some parasite genotypes induced higher mortality in amphipods than other genotypes, but this genetic effect was also independent of pH. Overall, our results reveal no significant intergenotype variation in how the parasite responds to ocean acidification with respect to two key traits, infection success and parasite-induced host mortality, suggesting limited potential for adaptation in the face of acidifying conditions.

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Non-linear effects of ocean acidification on the transmission of a marine intertidal parasite

Published 19 January 2016 Science Closed
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High levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are driving the acidification of the world’s oceans, with considerable and generally negative impacts on the physiology, performance and survival of marine organisms. The differential and often idiosyncratic responses shown by different taxa suggest that interspecific interactions may be drastically affected by ocean acidification. Here, we quantified the transmission success of the trematode Maritrema novaezealandense to its intertidal amphipod intermediate host Paracalliope novizealandiae, as well as the host’s survival, under acidified conditions. We used a custom-built system to simulate ocean acidification with 3 different seawater treatments: 8.1 pH, corresponding to current average ocean surface waters, as well as 7.6 and 7.4 pH, the levels predicted for the years 2100 and 2300, respectively. In 2 separate experiments, parasite transmission success tended to peak in the most acidified conditions (7.4 pH), although this was only statistically significant when a wide range of infection doses was used. Because the survival of the parasite’s transmission stages decreases with decreasing pH, this pattern suggests that host susceptibility remains unaffected at 7.6 pH and is only compromised with further acidification. Amphipod mortality was not affected by pH levels, though it tended to be lowest at 7.6 pH, where the longevity of parasite transmission stages was reduced but host susceptibility was unaffected. These results suggest that ocean acidification could change the dynamics of parasite transmission with possible consequences for intertidal community structure, and emphasise the need to consider the transmission and severity of marine parasites and diseases in ocean acidification research.

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Effects of seawater acidification on a coral reef meiofauna community

Published 27 April 2015 Science Closed
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Despite the increasing risk that ocean acidification will modify benthic communities, great uncertainty remains about how this impact will affect the lower trophic levels, such as members of the meiofauna. A mesocosm experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of water acidification on a phytal meiofauna community from a coral reef. Community samples collected from the coral reef subtidal zone (Recife de Fora Municipal Marine Park, Porto Seguro, Bahia, Brazil), using artificial substrate units, were exposed to a control pH (ambient seawater) and to three levels of seawater acidification (pH reductions of 0.3, 0.6, and 0.9 units below ambient) and collected after 15 and 30 d. After 30 d of exposure, major changes in the structure of the meiofauna community were observed in response to reduced pH. The major meiofauna groups showed divergent responses to acidification. Harpacticoida and Polychaeta densities did not show significant differences due to pH. Nematoda, Ostracoda, Turbellaria, and Tardigrada exhibited their highest densities in low-pH treatments (especially at the pH reduction of 0.6 units, pH 7.5), while harpacticoid nauplii were strongly negatively affected by low pH. This community-based mesocosm study supports previous suggestions that ocean acidification induces important changes in the structure of marine benthic communities. Considering the importance of meiofauna in the food web of coral reef ecosystems, the results presented here demonstrate that the trophic functioning of coral reefs is seriously threatened by ocean acidification.

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Differential tolerances to ocean acidification by parasites that share the same host

Published 30 March 2015 Science Closed
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Ocean acidification (OA) is predicted to cause major changes in marine ecosystem structure and function over the next century, as species-specific tolerances to acidified seawater may alter previously stable relationships between coexisting organisms. Such differential tolerances could affect marine host-parasite associations, as either host or parasite may prove more susceptible to the stressors associated with OA. Despite their important role in many ecological processes, parasites have not been studied in the context of OA. We tested the effects of low pH seawater on the cercariae and, where possible, the metacercariae of four species of marine trematode parasite. Acidified seawater (pH 7.6 and 7.4, 12.5°C) caused a 40 – 60% reduction in cercarial longevity and a 0 – 78% reduction in metacercarial survival. However, the reduction in longevity and survival varied distinctly between parasite taxa, indicating that the effects of reduced pH may be species-specific. These results suggest that OA has the potential to reduce the transmission success of many trematode species, decrease parasite abundance and alter the fundamental regulatory role of multi-host parasites in marine ecosystems.

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