Dataset Information

A complete Holocene record of trematode-bivalve infection and implications for the response of parasitism to climate change.

ABSTRACT: Increasing global temperature and sea-level rise have led to concern about expansions in the distribution and prevalence of complex-lifecycle parasites (CLPs). Indeed, numerous environmental variables can influence the infectivity and reproductive output of many pathogens. Digenean trematodes are CLPs with intermediate invertebrate and definitive vertebrate hosts. Global warming and sea level rise may affect these hosts to varying degrees, and the effect of increasing temperature on parasite prevalence has proven to be nonlinear and difficult to predict. Projecting the response of parasites to anthropogenic climate change is vital for human health, and a longer term perspective (10(4) y) offered by the subfossil record is necessary to complement the experimental and historical approaches of shorter temporal duration (10(-1) to 10(3) y). We demonstrate, using a high-resolution 9,600-y record of trematode parasite traces in bivalve hosts from the Holocene Pearl River Delta, that prevalence was significantly higher during the earliest stages of sea level rise, significantly lower during the maximum transgression, and statistically indistinguishable in the other stages of sea-level rise and delta progradation. This stratigraphic paleobiological pattern represents the only long-term high-resolution record of pathogen response to global change, is consistent with fossil and recent data from other marine basins, and is instructive regarding the future of disease. We predict an increase in trematode prevalence concurrent with anthropogenic warming and marine transgression, with negative implications for estuarine macrobenthos, marine fisheries, and human health.

SUBMITTER: Huntley JW

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4280592 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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A complete Holocene record of trematode-bivalve infection and implications for the response of parasitism to climate change.

Huntley John Warren JW Fürsich Franz T FT Alberti Matthias M Hethke Manja M Liu Chunlian C

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20141208 51

Increasing global temperature and sea-level rise have led to concern about expansions in the distribution and prevalence of complex-lifecycle parasites (CLPs). Indeed, numerous environmental variables can influence the infectivity and reproductive output of many pathogens. Digenean trematodes are CLPs with intermediate invertebrate and definitive vertebrate hosts. Global warming and sea level rise may affect these hosts to varying degrees, and the effect of increasing temperature on parasite pre ...[more]

PMID: 25489070

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Project description:Rapid warming and sea-level rise are predicted to be major driving forces in shaping coastal ecosystems and their services in the next century. Though forecasts of the multiple and complex effects of temperature and sea-level rise on ecological interactions suggest negative impacts on parasite diversity, the effect of long term climate change on parasite dynamics is complex and unresolved. Digenean trematodes are complex life cycle parasites that can induce characteristic traces on their bivalve hosts and hold potential to infer parasite host-dynamics through time and space. Previous work has demonstrated a consistent association between sea level rise and increasing prevalence of trematode traces, but a number of fundamental questions remain unanswered about this paleoecological proxy. Here we examine the relationships of host size, shape, and functional morphology with parasite prevalence and abundance, how parasites are distributed across hosts, and how all of these relationships vary through time, using the bivalve Chamelea gallina from a Holocene shallow marine succession in the Po coastal plain. Trematode prevalence increased and decreased in association with the transition from a wave-influenced estuarine system to a wave-dominated deltaic setting. Prevalence and abundance of trematode pits are associated with large host body size, reflecting ontogenetic accumulation of parasites, but temporal trends in median host size do not explain prevalence trends. Ongoing work will test the roles of temperature, salinity, and nutrient availability on trematode parasitism. Parasitized bivalves in one sample were shallower burrowers than their non-parasitized counterparts, suggesting that hosts of trematodes can be more susceptible to their predators, though the effect is ephemeral. Like in living parasite-host systems, trematode-induced malformations are strongly aggregated among hosts, wherein most host individuals harbor very few parasites while a few hosts have many. We interpret trace aggregation to support the assumption that traces are a reliable proxy for trematode parasitism in the fossil record.

Dataset Information

A complete Holocene record of trematode-bivalve infection and implications for the response of parasitism to climate change.

Publications

A complete Holocene record of trematode-bivalve infection and implications for the response of parasitism to climate change.

Similar Datasets

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