Morton Joseph P
Division of Marine Science and Conservation, Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Beaufort, NC, United States of America.
PeerJ. 2018 Mar 27;6:e4544. doi: 10.7717/peerj.4544. eCollection 2018.
Parasites are well-known to alter the behavior of their hosts, but there is still a paucity of knowledge about how parasites modify the behavior of many ecologically influential host species. I studied the keystone grazer, the salt marsh periwinkle to determine the influence of infection by the digenetic trematode, on its grazing behavior. Comparative laboratory grazing studies of wild-collected and experimentally infected snails revealed that decreased grazing on live by more than 80%. Because of the large ecological influence of in southern U.S. marshes, parasite modification of snail grazing may have ramifications for marsh ecosystem stability if parasite prevalence is sufficiently high.
寄生虫改变宿主行为是众所周知的，但对于寄生虫如何改变许多具有生态影响力的宿主物种的行为，我们仍然知之甚少。我研究了关键食草动物——盐沼滨螺，以确定复殖吸虫感染对其摄食行为的影响。对野生采集的和实验感染的蜗牛进行的比较实验室摄食研究表明，感染后的蜗牛对活藻的摄食量减少了80%以上。由于在美国南部沼泽地中，这种寄生虫具有很大的生态影响，如果寄生虫的感染率足够高，那么寄生虫对蜗牛摄食行为的改变可能会对沼泽生态系统的稳定性产生影响。
