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ICES Journal of Marine Science (2017), 74(4), 929–933. doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsw156 Contribution to Special Issue: ‘Towards a Broader Perspective on Ocean Acidification Research Part 2’ Food for Thought Parasitic infection: a missing piece of the ocean acidification puzzle Colin D. MacLeod Department of Zoology, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054, New Zealand Corresponding author: tel: þ64 3 471 6146; e-mail: [email protected] MacLeod, C. D. Parasitic infection: a missing piece of the ocean acidification puzzle. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 74: 929–933. Received 30 May 2016; revised 19 August 2016; accepted 20 August 2016; advance access publication 8 September 2016. Ocean acidification (OA) research has matured into a sophisticated experimental and theoretical scientific discipline, which now utilizes multiple stressor, mesocosm experiments, and mathematical simulation models to predict the near-future effects of continued acidification on marine ecosystems. These advanced methodological approaches to OA research also include the study of inter-specific interactions that could be disrupted if participant species exhibit differential tolerances to stressors associated with OA. The host-parasite relationship is one of the most fundamental ecological interactions, alongside competition and predation, which can regulate individuals, populations, and communities. The recent integration of competition and predation into OA research has provided great insight into the potential effects of differential tolerances to acidified seawater, and there is no reason to believe that expanding OA research to include parasitology will be less fruitful. This essay outlines our current, limited understanding of how OA will affect parasitism as an ecological process, describes potential pitfalls for researchers who ignore parasites and the effects of infection, and suggests ways of developing parasitology as a sub-field of OA research. Keywords: confounding factor, gastropod, marine ecology, ocean acidification, parasitic infection, trematode. Introduction The trajectory of ocean acidification (OA) research shares many similarities with other marine ecology disciplines that emerged in response to large-scale disturbances to the ocean’s abiotic environment caused by human activity, e.g. ocean warming, hypoxic dead zones, and elevated nutrient input (Keeling et al., 2010; Doney et al., 2012). First, the global decrease in seawater pH was identified and quantified (Caldeira and Wickett, 2003), then acknowledged by the marine research community (Doney et al., 2009). This was followed by an increase in the number of singlefactor, single-species experiments designed to test the biological effects of stressors associated with OA, i.e. reduced pH, increased bicarbonate ion concentration, and decreased carbonate ion concentration (see review in Kroeker et al., 2013), before additional abiotic and biotic variables were added to experimental design (e.g. Ferrari et al., 2015). Eventually, empirical data was incorporated into ecological simulation models to predict the effects of continued change to the abiotic environment (Queir os et al., 2015). Throughout the research trajectory of OA and other marine ecology disciplines, metazoan and protozoan parasites have been largely overlooked (MacLeod and Poulin, 2012; Kroeker et al., 2014; Gaylord et al., 2015; Reusch, 2016), possibly due to their small size, which leads to the erroneous assumption that their influence must also be small (Marcogliese and Cone, 1997; Kuris et al., 2008), or due to the paucity of marine ecologists who integrate parasitology into their research (Poulin et al., 2016). In either case, this is a remarkable oversight, as 30–50% of known species are categorized as parasitic (De Mee^ us and Renaud, 2002), parasites make up a large component of the total biomass in many coastal ecosystems (Kuris et al., 2008), and parasite species are simultaneously apex predators, prey, and competitors (Thieltges et al., 2013). Parasitic infection can dramatically modify the fitness, behaviour, physiology, survival, and fecundity of infected individuals, and regulate population-, community-, and ecosystem-level processes (Mouritsen and Poulin, 2002; Lefèvre et al., 2009; Hatcher et al., 2012). Parasitic infection can also affect the aquaculture and fishing industries by reducing the market value of commercial species (Perdiguero-Alonso et al., C International Council for the Exploration of the Sea 2016. All rights reserved. V For Permissions, please email: [email protected] 930 2008) and altering recruitment rates of juveniles into commercially valuable populations (Shinn et al., 2015). Needless to say, when parasitology is finally incorporated into novel research areas, such as global warming, it offers valuable insight into the effects of abiotic change in marine systems, e.g. increased prevalence and virulence of pre-existing diseases (Harvell, 1999). I hope that this essay will encourage the rapid integration of parasitology in OA research, and initiate a productive dialogue between parasitologists and marine ecologists, as reduced seawater pH is one of the most significant changes to the abiotic marine environment that has occurred in the past two million years (Honisch et al., 2012). As with competitive and predator–prey interactions, the relationship between parasite and host is an arms race, in which the end result is decided by the relative fitness of participant species (Haraguchi and Sasaki, 1996). Even small changes in abiotic conditions can gradually affect the fitness of an individual and disrupt the expected outcome of these encounters, e.g. compromised host defences against infection (Studer et al., 2012), impaired predator evasion (Chivers et al., 2014), and a decreased ability to absorb nutrients (Dutkiewicz et al., 2015). Given the rapid changes to seawater chemistry caused by human activity, it is highly likely that sympatric marine species will exhibit differential tolerances which could disturb stable community dynamics through altered inter-specific interaction, such as those that exist between host and parasite (Mouritsen and Poulin, 2002). To date, OA-parasite research has focussed on trematode parasites (MacLeod and Poulin, 2015b; Guilloteau et al., 2016) and their interaction with gastropod hosts (Harland et al., 2015, 2016; MacLeod and Poulin, 2015a, 2016a,b), although some research has examined the immune response of gastropod and bivalve species exposed to simulated OA (Mackenzie, 1999; Bibby et al., 2008; Ellis et al., 2015; Keppel et al., 2015). A search of the Web of Science database using the keywords “OA AND parasit*” to the end of 2013 returned only seven publications, the first of which appeared in 2011 (Poulin et al., 2016); extending this search to the end of 2015 finds another seven publications. Of these, less than half are research articles, with the majority coming from the Evolutionary and Ecological Parasitology Research Group at the University of Otago, New Zealand, which often uses gastropod hosts and trematode parasites in ecological studies. Consequently, most of the examples used in this essay are from trematode-gastropod systems, but it is critically important to understand that there are other major parasitic taxa, e.g. nematodes, cestodes, acanthocephalans, crustaceans, and myxozoans, that must ultimately be incorporated into OA research. The direct effects of OA on parasites Here, I define the direct effects of OA as those that occur when an organism comes into immediate contact with high CO2 seawater. In the context of parasites, this includes free-swimming transmission stages, cysts or eggs, and ectoparasites. From this perspective, parasites that are directly affected by exposure to high CO2 seawater are not substantively different from non-parasitic marine meiofauna, or the early developmental stages of larger marine organisms, which have been studied extensively over the past 10–15 years (see review in Kroeker et al., 2013). As such, parasites exposed to acidified seawater are challenged by the same predominant physiological stressors as non-parasitic organisms, i.e. C. D. MacLeod increased metabolic costs of ionoregulation and calcification. As the effects of simulated OA on non-parasitic organisms is generally negative, it is no surprise that exposure to high CO2 seawater reduces the survival of free-swimming trematode larvae (cercariae) and external cysts (metacercariae) (MacLeod and Poulin, 2015b; Guilloteau et al., 2016). The reduced survival of transmission stages may decrease parasite prevalence, as the probability of finding and successfully infecting an appropriate host will also be decreased. Changes in parasite prevalence could alter the regulatory effect of parasites on host populations, and cause a shift away from a previously stable state by altering host fecundity and behaviour, and, subsequently, modifying the host’s ecological role (Labaude et al., 2015). Some coastal habitats have a very high prevalence of castrating parasites (Lafferty and Kuris, 2009) which limit the fecundity of the host population (Gilardoni et al., 2012). If parasite prevalence was reduced in these systems by changing abiotic conditions, the reproductive output of host populations could increase and alter the host species’ role as competitor or predator. Similarly, many species of parasite alter the behaviour of infected individuals, such that the latter are more likely to be predated upon by the next host in the parasite’s life-cycle (Thomas et al., 1998). Consequently, reduced parasite prevalence could cause a decrease in food availability for the predator species and increase the survival rates of the host species (Sato et al., 2011; Labaude et al., 2015). Of course, we cannot begin to predict changes to parasite prevalence until more trials investigate how host susceptibility to infection is altered by exposure to high CO2 seawater. To my knowledge, only five such articles have been published to date, and they show no consistent pattern in host response: two tested the immune function parameters of mussels (Mytilus edulis) as a proxy for susceptibility to bacterial infection (Bibby et al., 2008; Mackenzie et al., 2014); Ellis et al. (2015) tested the immune response of M. edulis exposed to bacteria (Vibrio tubiashii); Harland et al. (2015) recorded the infection rates of amphipods (Paracalliope novizealandiae) exposed to trematode infection (Maritrema novaezealandensis); and Keppel et al. (2015) recorded the acquisition and progression of protistan infections (Perkinsus marinus) by the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica).This lack of conclusive data to describe the effect of OA on host susceptibility to infection should be urgently addressed, as increased infection rates, particularly of parasitic species that alter host fecundity, could have dramatic consequences for ecologically or commercially important species. A second important effect of high CO2-mediated mortality of the free-living stages of parasites is a reduction in the availability of food to non-host organisms that prey on the parasite. Freeswimming parasite larvae, such as cercariae, make up a substantial proportion of the zooplankton component of many food chains (Thieltges et al., 2013). If high CO2-mediated mortality removes a significant proportion of free-living parasite life stages from marine food webs, there could be major consequences for the dynamics, structure, and resilience of trophic networks (Poulin et al., 2013). In addition, differential mortality of the free-living stages of parasite species that compete for the same host could alter the competitive interactions between sympatric parasite populations, altering the prevalence of the less tolerant species. Clearly, the direct effects described above all have the potential to significantly decrease the established ecological role of parasites and alter community structure either through reduced parasite prevalence or abundance. 931 A missing piece of the OA puzzle The interactive effects of OA and infection stress The confounding effects of parasitic infection Despite their disparate origins, stressors associated with both OA and parasitic infection affect host organisms in fundamentally similar ways, increasing the likelihood that, in combination, they will have synergistic or additive effects. Exposure to high CO2 seawater increases the energy required to fuel ionoregulatory mechanisms or biomineralisation (Kelly and Hofmann, 2013; Pan et al., 2015), while infection increases the metabolic demands of the host as it supplies energy to the parasite in addition to meeting its own energetic requirements. Parasitic infection and exposure to acidified seawater alter the biogenesis of calcium carbonate structures by shell-forming species, e.g. shell growth rates (OA, Coleman et al., 2014; infection, Probst and Kube, 1999) and morphology (OA, Bibby et al., 2007; infection, Hay et al., 2005). For instance, parasitic infection has already been shown to alter the calcifying and physiological ability of infected gastropods exposed to acidified seawater (MacLeod and Poulin, 2015a, 2016a). Furthermore, both exposure to high CO2 seawater and parasitic infection can independently alter the behaviour of infected individuals, e.g. inhibited neurological function (OA, Hamilton et al., 2013; infection, Shaw et al., 2009). We must acknowledge, however, that below a certain pH value, the internal fluids of host organisms may become acidified, as the ionoregulatory ability of the host organism is overwhelmed (Reipschl€ager and Pörtner, 1996). Beyond that point, the endoparasites are directly exposed to an acidified environment, albeit acidified extracellular fluid rather than acidified seawater. Consequently, we must return to the criteria defined above for direct exposure to acidified conditions to evaluate the endoparasite’s response, but with the understanding that any adverse effects on the parasite will also affect the host organism from within. In this scenario, endoparasites, stressed by an acidified micro-environment, would increase their metabolic energy consumption and cause a corresponding increase in the energy requirements of the host. The host organisms would then have to adapt to a greater overall energy budget or, if this were not possible, experience a gradual decline in energy stores as demand outpaced supply, ultimately leading to mortality. Beyond changes to energy transfer between host and parasite, direct exposure to acidified conditions may elicit the same response in endoparasites as was found in the free-living infective stages, i.e. reduced survival. Only one study has investigated the effects of exposure to high CO2 seawater on endoparasites; it found that exposure of the gastropod hosts (Austrolittorina cincta and Zeacumantus subcarinatus) to acidified conditions caused significant increases in the reproductive output of trematode parasites (Parorchis sp. and Philophthalmus sp.) (Guilloteau et al., 2016). It remains to be determined whether these changes are due to altered energy budgets of infected organisms exposed to acidified seawater or the exposure of endoparasites to acidified host fluids. Although more research is required, it is clear that the interaction of OA and infection stress has the potential to have wide-ranging consequences in the marine environment by altering the effect of parasitic infection on host organisms. As described in the “Introduction” section, parasitic infection can modify the survival, fecundity, physiology, and behaviour of the host, and any OA-mediated changes to these effects would likely alter the ecological role of host populations. Thus far, I have focussed on the few studies that investigated the effects of exposure to high CO2 seawater on host-parasite associations, and the importance of this research with regards to understanding how marine ecosystems will respond to continued acidification. However, the results of these studies also have extremely important implications for broader OA research. If parasitic infection can significantly alter the response of host organisms to a high CO2 environment, it has the potential to confound the results of OA experiments where infection was not considered. This is a crucial point, as one of the major goals of OA research is to quantify the tolerance of ecologically and commercially important species, in order to predict future changes to marine biodiversity and identify potentially negative effects on the aquaculture and fishing industries (Kroeker et al., 2013). To date, two publications have examined the effects of infection on the overall response of host organisms exposed to high CO2 seawater. MacLeod and Poulin (2016a) reported significant effects of both infection status and pH on the tissue glucose concentration of four groups of snails: uninfected, and infected with one of three trematode species. However, the analysis of pooled data, i.e. the response of all snails regardless of infection status, failed to detect the significant effect of pH. Similarly, MacLeod and Poulin (2016b) showed that only the survival of uninfected snails was significantly affected by exposure to acidified seawater, and again found that the significant effect of pH was no longer detectable when data from infected and uninfected individuals was pooled. Both studies collected snails from a site of naturally high parasite prevalence (>85%, Fredensborg et al., 2005); had the experimental organisms not been screened for infection, they would have been mistakenly categorized as tolerant of high CO2 conditions, when, in fact, this response was an artefact of infection. These two studies clearly illustrate the dangers of ignoring the presence of parasites when conducting OA research, as the effects of infection were central to demonstrating that the host species was negatively affected by exposure to acidified seawater. In both cases, if infection had not been included in the analysis, the true response of the host species, i.e. the response of uninfected individuals, would have been masked by the confounding effects of the parasites. Integrating parasitology into OA research Primarily, the effects of parasitic infection on organisms exposed to simulated OA should be investigated in greater depth and with a more phylogenetically diverse range of parasite species. Given the potential for endoparasites to alter the behaviour and fitness of host species if they become exposed to an acidified microenvironment, further study is also required to investigate the effects of acidification on the extracellular fluids of vertebrate and invertebrate hosts, particularly those with limited ionoregulatory capacity. One of the main challenges in parasitological research is maintaining a complete parasite life-cycle under controlled lab conditions, and such a model system is urgently required to study the effects of high CO2 seawater on every stage of the parasite’s life-cycle. Screening for parasites should become a standard operating procedure in experimental OA research, as the confounding effects of infection could dilute the strength of an OA signal even in systems with low parasite prevalence. Parasites should also be included in all long-term ecological monitoring programmes to 932 conclusively establish if prevalence does change with the gradual acidification of seawater. Conclusion Although research that supports the importance of parasitism in an acidifying ocean is still extremely sparse, it strongly suggests that the hidden effects of infection could change our understanding of how OA will affect many marine species. This research also further demonstrates that inter-specific interactions, in this case host-parasite associations, can influence the ecological effects of changing abiotic conditions. To date, the host and parasite species used in OA research have been of ecological importance only, so the possible implications for the aquaculture and fishing industries are completely unknown. 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