Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research of the University of Porto (CIIMAR-UP), Terminal de Cruzeiros do Porto de Leixões, Av. General Norton de Matos, 4450-208 Matosinhos, Portugal.
Institute of Hydrobiology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Na Sádkách 7, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic.
Parasitology. 2022 Oct;149(12):1536-1545. doi: 10.1017/S0031182022000993. Epub 2022 Aug 4.
The impact of infection on the nutritional status of the shore crab was investigated in the western Dutch Wadden Sea for a period of 20 months. About 3.3% of the population was sacculinized, i.e. externally infected with and only 0.7% presented scars of previous infection. The results of mixed linear models showed that sacculinized and non-sacculinized crabs had similar morphometric condition, while the energy density of parasitized crabs (externa excluded) was significantly reduced by about 4.3% overall, and by up to 5.8% in crabs under 40 mm carapace width. However, when externa was included in the energy determinations, the difference in energy density decreased to 1.2%, while total energy content of the pair infected crab-parasite including externa was 30.8% higher than non-sacculinized crabs of similar size. The total energy content of ovigerous females (eggs included) was even higher, near doubling the energy of similar-sized crabs. The same way, total energy content of externa was about 4 times lower than total energy of egg mass. The results suggest that the rhizocephalan parasite is efficient in consuming the energy that the host may allocate for growth and maintenance, but require future studies to disentangle the impact of the degree of internal infection and the implications for the dynamics of the population.
在荷兰西部瓦登海，研究人员对 20 个月的时间内感染对滨蟹营养状况的影响进行了调查。约有 3.3%的滨蟹被囊蚴感染，即外部感染了囊蚴，只有 0.7%的滨蟹出现过先前感染的疤痕。混合线性模型的结果表明，囊蚴化和非囊蚴化的螃蟹具有相似的形态条件，而寄生螃蟹（外部除外）的能量密度总体上降低了约 4.3%，甲壳宽度在 40 毫米以下的螃蟹降低了高达 5.8%。然而，当将外部包含在能量测定中时，能量密度的差异减小到 1.2%，而包括外部的感染螃蟹-寄生虫对的总能量含量比类似大小的非囊蚴化螃蟹高 30.8%。产卵期雌性螃蟹（包括卵子）的总能量含量甚至更高，接近类似大小螃蟹的两倍。同样，外部的总能量含量约为卵质量总能量的 4 倍。研究结果表明，根头虫寄生虫有效地消耗了宿主可能用于生长和维持的能量，但需要进一步的研究来理清内部感染程度的影响及其对种群动态的影响。
