Data from: Fish culling reduces tapeworm burden in Arctic charr by increasing parasite mortality rather than by reducing density‐dependent transmission ...

• Main Authors: Henriksen, Eirik Haugstvedt, Frainer, André, Knudsen, Rune, Kristoffersen, Roar, Kuris, Armand M., Lafferty, Kevin D., Amundsen, Per-Arne
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2019
• Subjects: fish parasites; Diphyllobothrium; host culling; fishing; long-term study; whole-lake experiment; host-parasite interactions; Dibothriocephalus dendriticus; Dibothriocephalus ditremus; Dibothriocephalus; Salvelinus alpinus; Arctic; Arctic charr; Subarctic
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.bd10668; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.bd10668

1. Two common Dibothriocephalus (formerly Diphyllobothrium) tapeworm species were significantly reduced by experimental culling of their fish host Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) in a subarctic lake. 2. Between 1984 and 1991, funnel traps were used to cull ~ 35 metric tons of Arctic charr, reducing charr density by ~ 80%. As charr densities decreased, tapeworm prevalence and then intensity also declined over the following three decades, with D. dendriticus (formerly dendriticum) responding faster than D. ditremus (formerly ditremum). The two main hypotheses for how culling a host can decrease parasitism are reductions in parasite transmission due to reduced host density and reductions in parasite survival through increases in host mortality rates. 3. We found little evidence that charr density was the main driver for reduced parasite transmission. Instead, decreased survivorship in charr, initially, through fishing-induced changes in charr age structure, and later through increased predation rates by brown ... : Henriksen_et_al_dibothriocephalus_dataData used to produce figure 1 and 2 in manuscript.dibothriocephalus_data.csvHenriksen_et_al_individual_fish_dataData used for GLS and logistic regression analysis.individual_fish_data.csv ...