TY - JOUR
T1 - High parasite prevalence in an ecosystem engineer correlated with both local- and landscape-level factors
AU - Ziegler, Shelby L.
AU - Atencio, Wil E.
AU - Carroll, John M.
AU - Byers, James E.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2024.
PY - 2024/6
Y1 - 2024/6
N2 - Spatial variation in parasitic infection may have many physical and biological drivers. Uncovering these drivers may be especially important for parasites of ecosystem engineers because the engineers are foundational to their communities. Oysters are an important coastal ecosystem engineer that have declined drastically worldwide, in part due to enhanced cases of lethal oyster diseases, such as Dermo and MSX, caused by the protozoan parasites Perkinsus marinus and Haplosporidium nelsoni, respectively. Besides water quality and hydrodynamics, there is little information on how other variables influence the prevalence and intensity of these pathogens in oysters across a regional scale. To examine drivers of spatial variation in these oyster parasites—including host size, local reef properties, and landscape properties—we sampled 24 reefs systematically spread along the coast of Georgia, USA. Across sites, we found universally high prevalence of oysters with at least one of these parasites (91.02% ± 8.89, mean ± SD). Not only are high levels of parasite prevalence potentially problematic for a pivotal ecosystem engineer, but also low spatial variability may limit the explanatory power of variables across a regional scale. Our statistical models explained between 18 and 42% of the variation in spatial patterns of prevalence and intensity of these microparasites. Interestingly, landscape context was a positive predictor of P. marinus, but a negative predictor of H. nelsoni. Overall, our findings suggest that factors driving parasite prevalence and intensity operate across multiple spatial scales, and the same factor can both facilitate and hinder different parasites within the same host species.
AB - Spatial variation in parasitic infection may have many physical and biological drivers. Uncovering these drivers may be especially important for parasites of ecosystem engineers because the engineers are foundational to their communities. Oysters are an important coastal ecosystem engineer that have declined drastically worldwide, in part due to enhanced cases of lethal oyster diseases, such as Dermo and MSX, caused by the protozoan parasites Perkinsus marinus and Haplosporidium nelsoni, respectively. Besides water quality and hydrodynamics, there is little information on how other variables influence the prevalence and intensity of these pathogens in oysters across a regional scale. To examine drivers of spatial variation in these oyster parasites—including host size, local reef properties, and landscape properties—we sampled 24 reefs systematically spread along the coast of Georgia, USA. Across sites, we found universally high prevalence of oysters with at least one of these parasites (91.02% ± 8.89, mean ± SD). Not only are high levels of parasite prevalence potentially problematic for a pivotal ecosystem engineer, but also low spatial variability may limit the explanatory power of variables across a regional scale. Our statistical models explained between 18 and 42% of the variation in spatial patterns of prevalence and intensity of these microparasites. Interestingly, landscape context was a positive predictor of P. marinus, but a negative predictor of H. nelsoni. Overall, our findings suggest that factors driving parasite prevalence and intensity operate across multiple spatial scales, and the same factor can both facilitate and hinder different parasites within the same host species.
KW - Communities
KW - Disease
KW - Geographic variation
KW - Landscape context
KW - Multiple stressors
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85196271647&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00442-024-05581-4
DO - 10.1007/s00442-024-05581-4
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85196271647
SN - 0029-8549
VL - 205
SP - 423
EP - 435
JO - Oecologia
JF - Oecologia
IS - 2
ER -