Effect of the digenean parasites of fish on the fauna of Mediterranean lagoons

Abstract

Attention is drawn to the effects of parasites on their hosts, taking as a model the digenean parasites of teleosts (hereafter: fish) from lagoons along the French Mediterranean coast. Because digeneans have a heteroxenic life cycle, their impact is not limited to the definitive host, which harbours the sexual adults, but is extended to the first host (mollusc) and to the second host ("invertebrate" or fish). Adult parasites, in order to ensure efficient sexual reproduction, never cause excessive damage to their definitive host, usually only exploiting the intestinal fluids; however, the host must intensify its search for prey, which results in a diminished fitness. Within the first host, 'larval' stages of digenean parasites invade the gonads, resulting in its castration, then exhaustion and eventually death. The diversion of energy from the second hosts towards the parasites forces them to intensify their search for food, resulting in decreased fitness and an increased risk of being eaten; in addition, manipulation of the host's behaviour by parasites drives this host into the food chain of the definitive host. In lagoons, many individuals of almost all species of fish and invertebrates act as first, second and/or definitive hosts for digeneans. Obviously, parasites have a severe impact on the population dynamics of key taxa, on the food web and therefore also on the functioning of the whole lagoon ecosystem. Yet this impact has been largely overlooked or underestimated in functioning models, by ecologists, who tend to prioritize more apparent trophic relationships.