Publication details
Metapopulation biology of marine parasites
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2005 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Numerous studies on marine parasites are devoted to surveys, used of parasites as biological tags (MacKenzie 2002) and parasite community ecology (Holmes 1990, Rohde et al. 1995, 1998). Very few papers are directly concerned with population dynamics (Lo et al. 1998) and hence metapopulation theory. In this section theoretical arguments are summarised that emphasise that parasites of marine fish do show dynamic behaviour that should be analysed in the framework of metapopulation theory. The patterns of distribution and abundance of fish parasites (at least ectoparasites) are explained by epidemiological and statistical models in accordance to the theory. The most important point is the lack of interaction between ectoparasite species exploiting the same patchy resource (i.e. the fish host). Patterns of epidemiological and community structure suggest that each metapopulation of parasite behaves independently. This point is also in accordance with the theoretical prediction of Dobson and Roberts (1994) who concluded that interactions between parasites and their hosts are more important in determining community structure than direct interactions between parasite species. Hence, spatial aggregation, and demographic characteristics of both host and parasite are the crucial mechanisms permitting increases in diversity in parasite communities. However, several questions remain unresolved, mostly because of the lack of long-term studies of fish parasite population dynamics. The most crucial question is linked to the habitat specificity both at the level of the whole resource (i.e. the host species) and at the level of the microhabitat within a local patch (i.e. individual host). For example, species coexistence of congeneric monogeneans is generally explained by pre-reproductive isolation in order to prevent hybridisation (Rohde and Hobbs 1986, Simková et al. 2002b). This necessitates the use of genetics for the analyses of metapopulation biology among and within host species, which would help to demonstrate the very necessary point that extinction and recolonisation of populations may occur, leading to a better understanding of how parasite communities are established. |