Parasitic infection: a buffer against ocean acidification?

• Main Authors: MacLeod, Colin D, Poulin, Robert
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2016
• Subjects: Alkalinity; total; standard deviation; Animalia; Aragonite saturation state; Benthic animals; Benthos; Bicarbonate ion; Calcite saturation state; Calculated; Calculated using seacarb after Nisumaa et al. (2010); Carbon; inorganic; dissolved; Carbonate ion; Carbonate system computation flag; Carbon dioxide; Category; Coast and continental shelf; Containers and aquaria (20-1000 L or < 1 m**2); Fugacity of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); Identification; Laboratory experiment; Mollusca; Mortality/Survival; OA-ICC; Ocean Acidification International Coordination Centre; Other; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide; Partial pressure of carbon dioxide (water) at sea surface temperature (wet air); pH; Registration number of species; Salinity; Single species; South Pacific; Species; Temperate; Pacific; Ocean acidification
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.869417; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.869417

Recently, there has been a concerted research effort by marine scientists to quantify the sensitivity of marine organisms to ocean acidification (OA). Empirical data generated by this research have been used to predict changes to marine ecosystem health, biodiversity and productivity that will be caused by continued acidification. These studies have also found that the effects of OA on marine organisms can be significantly modified by additional abiotic stressors (e.g. temperature or oxygen) and biotic interactions (e.g. competition or predation). To date, however, the effects of parasitic infection on the sensitivity of marine organisms to OA have been largely ignored. We show that parasitic infection significantly altered the response of a marine gastropod to simulated OA conditions by reducing the mortality of infected individuals relative to uninfected conspecifics. Without the inclusion of infection data, our analysis would not have detected the significant effect of pH on host mortality. These results strongly suggest that parasitic infection may be an important confounding factor in OA research and must be taken into consideration when assessing the response of marine species to OA.