Temperature-dependent effects of sea-louse infestation on juvenile Atlantic salmon

• Main Author: Godwin, Sean
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Atlantic salmon; Salmo salar
• Online Access: https://zenodo.org/record/4116374; https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2jm63xskg

Infectious diseases are key drivers of wildlife populations and agriculture production, but whether and how climate change will influence disease impacts remains controversial. One of the critical knowledge gaps that prevents resolution of this controversy is a lack of high-quality experimental data, especially in marine systems of significant ecological and economic consequence. Here, we performed a manipulative experiment in which we tested the temperature-dependent effects on Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) of sea lice (Lepeophtheirus salmonis) – a parasite that can depress the productivity of wild-salmon populations and the profits of the salmon-farming industry. We explored sea-louse impacts on their hosts across a range of temperatures (10, 13, 16, 19, and 22 °C) and infestation levels (zero, 'low' (mean abundance ± SE = 1.6 ± 0.1 lice per fish), and 'high' infestation (6.8 ± 0.4 lice per fish)). We found that the effects of sea lice on the growth rate, condition, and survival of juvenile Atlantic salmon all worsen with increasing temperature. Our results provide a rare empirical example of how climate change may influence the impacts of marine disease in a key social-ecological system. These findings underscore the importance of considering climate-driven changes to disease impacts in wildlife conservation and agriculture. This Dryad submission includes the growth-rate, condition, and survival data for the manuscript entitled "Increasing temperatures accentuate negative fitness consequences of a marine parasite" by Sean C. Godwin, Mark D. Fast, Anna Kuparinen, Kate E. Medcalf, and Jeffrey A. Hutchings. Notes NAs due to unmatched pit tags between start and end of experiment (i.e., no pit tag scanned at start and/or end) Column metadata for growth-rate and condition dataset date = date (yyyy-mm-dd) temp.group = assigned temperature group temp.real = observed mean temperature of temperature group over course of experiment dd = observed number of degree-days for temperature group over course of experiment inf ...