Host preferences inhibit transmission from potential superspreader host species.

Host species that are particularly abundant, infectious and/or infected tend to contribute disproportionately to symbiont (parasite or mutualist) maintenance in multi-host systems. Therefore, in a facultative multi-host system where two host species had high densities, high symbiont infestation intensities and high infestation prevalence, we expected interspecific transmission rates to be high. Instead, we found that interspecific symbiont transmission rates to caged sentinel hosts were an order of magnitude lower than intraspecific transmission rates in the wild.

Handling times and saturating transmission functions in a snail-worm symbiosis.

All dynamic species interaction models contain an assumption that describes how contact rates scale with population density. Choosing an appropriate contact-density function is important, because different functions have different implications for population dynamics and stability. However, this choice can be challenging, because there are many possible functions, and most are phenomenological and thus difficult to relate to underlying ecological processes.

Defensive Symbionts Mediate Host-Parasite Interactions at Multiple Scales.

In protection mutualisms, defensive symbionts protect their hosts from natural enemies, including parasites. Protection mutualisms were historically considered rare ecological relationships, but recent examples demonstrate that defensive symbionts are both quite common and diverse. Defensive symbionts can have surprisingly large effects on host and parasite ecology at the individual, population, guild, and community scales.

Dispersal of a defensive symbiont depends on contact between hosts, host health, and host size.

Symbiont dispersal is necessary for the maintenance of defense mutualisms in space and time, and the distribution of symbionts among hosts should be intricately tied to symbiont dispersal behaviors. However, we know surprisingly little about how most defensive symbionts find and choose advantageous hosts or what cues trigger symbionts to disperse from their current hosts. In a series of six experiments, we explored the dispersal ecology of an oligochaete worm (Chaetogaster limnaei) that protects snail hosts from infection by larval trematode parasites.

Host density and competency determine the effects of host diversity on trematode parasite infection.

Variation in host species composition can dramatically alter parasite transmission in natural communities. Whether diverse host communities dilute or amplify parasite transmission is thought to depend critically on species traits, particularly on how hosts affect each other's densities, and their relative competency as hosts. Here we studied a community of potential hosts and/or decoys (i.

Plastic hatching timing by red-eyed treefrog embryos interacts with larval predator identity and sublethal predation to affect prey morphology but not performance.

Many animals respond to predation risk by altering their morphology, behavior, or life-history. We know a great deal about the cues prey respond to and the changes to prey that can be induced by predation risk, but less is known about how plastic responses to predators may be affected by separate plastic responses occurring earlier in life, particularly during the embryonic period. Embryos of a broad array of taxa can respond to egg- or larval-stage risks by altering hatching timing, which may alter the way organisms respond to future predators.

Consequences of induced hatching plasticity depend on predator community.

Many prey species face trade-offs in the timing of life history switch points like hatching and metamorphosis. Costs associated with transitioning early depend on the biotic and abiotic conditions found in the subsequent life stage. The red-eyed treefrog, Agalychnis callidryas, faces risks from predators in multiple, successive life stages, and can hatch early in response to mortality threats at the egg stage.

Parasite predators exhibit a rapid numerical response to increased parasite abundance and reduce transmission to hosts.

Predators of parasites have recently gained attention as important parts of food webs and ecosystems. In aquatic systems, many taxa consume free-living stages of parasites, and can thus reduce parasite transmission to hosts. However, the importance of the functional and numerical responses of parasite predators to disease dynamics is not well understood.

Pond acidification may explain differences in corticosterone among salamander populations.

Physiological tolerances play a key role in determining species distributions and abundance across a landscape, and understanding these tolerances can therefore be useful in predicting future changes in species distributions that might occur. Vertebrates possess several highly conserved physiological mechanisms for coping with environmental stressors, including the hormonal stress response that involves an endocrine cascade resulting in the increased production of glucocorticoids. We examined the function of this endocrine axis by assessing both baseline and acute stress-induced concentrations of corticosterone in larvae from eight natural breeding populations of Jefferson's salamander Ambystoma jeffersonianum.

Echinostoma trivolvis (Digenea: Echinostomatidae) second intermediate host preference matches host suitability.

Many trematodes infect a single mollusk species as their first intermediate host, and then infect a variety of second intermediate host species. Determining the factors that shape host specificity is an important step towards understanding trematode infection dynamics. Toward this end, we studied two pond snails (Physa gyrina and Helisoma trivolvis) that can be infected as second intermediate hosts by the trematode Echinostoma trivolvis lineage a (ETa).

Metagonimoides oregonensis (Heterophyidae: Digenea) infection in Pleurocerid snails and Desmognathus quadramaculatus salamander larvae in Southern Appalachian streams.

Metagonimoides oregonensis (Heterophyidae) is a little-known digenetic trematode that uses raccoons and possibly mink as definitive hosts, and stream snails and amphibians as intermediate hosts. Some variation in the life cycle and adult morphology in western and eastern populations has been previously noted. In the southern Appalachians, Pleurocera snails and stream salamanders, e.

The combined influence of trematode parasites and predatory salamanders on wood frog (Rana sylvatica) tadpoles.

Predators can have important impacts on host-parasite dynamics. For many directly transmitted parasites, predators can reduce transmission by removing the most heavily infected individuals from the population. Less is known about how predators might influence parasite dynamics in systems where the parasite relies on vectors or multiple host species to complete their life cycles.

Hatching of Echinostoma trivolvis miracidia in response to snail host and non-host chemical cues.

Environmental cues are used by many organisms to time life history transitions and can be important for trematode host location. However, while much is understood about how larval trematodes locate hosts, much less is known about the potential role of host cues in the timing of trematode egg development and hatching. We addressed the potential role of host chemical cues in mediating hatching of Echinostoma trivolvis miracidia by comparing hatching in response to cues from the first intermediate host (the snail Planorbella trivolvis), a non-host snail (the snail Goniobasis proxima), and a non-host invertebrate (earthworm, Lumbricus terrestris).

Consequences of niche overlap for ecosystem functioning: an experimental test with pond grazers.

While the number of studies investigating the effects of species diversity on ecosystem properties continues to expand, few have explicitly examined how ecosystem functioning depends quantitatively on the degree of niche complementarity among species. We report the results of a microcosm experiment where similarity in habitat use among aquatic snail species was evaluated as a predictor of changes in community and ecosystem properties due to increasing species richness. Replicate microcosms with all possible one- and two-species combinations of a guild of six snail species were stocked with identical initial snail biomass.

The role of omnivorous crayfish in littoral communities.

Large omnivorous predators may play particularly important roles determining the structure of communities because of their broad diets and simultaneous effects on multiple trophic levels. From June 2001 to June 2002 we quantified community structure and ecosystem attributes of six newly establishing freshwater ponds (660 m2 each) after populations of omnivorous crayfish (Orconectes virilis) were introduced to three of the ponds. Crayfish preyed heavily on fish eggs in this experiment, which reduced recruitment of young-of-year fish.