Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Apr 14;12(1):623.
doi: 10.1038/s41597-025-04970-5.

Establishing a comprehensive host-parasite stable isotope database to unravel trophic relationships

Amandine J M Sabadel  1   2   3 , Philip Riekenberg  4 , Monica Ayala-Diaz  5 , Mark C Belk  6 , Jerusha Bennett  7 , Antonio Bode  8 , Sarah J Bury  9 , Laurent Dabouineau  10 , Josette Delgado  9 , Brittany Finucci  9 , Rita García-Seoane  8 , Luisa Giari  11 , Jessica Henkens  12 , Lonneke L IJsseldijk  13 , Tijs Joling  4 , Ollie Kerr-Hislop  9 , Colin D MacLeod  14 , Lauren Meyer  12 , Rona A R McGill  15 , Eleonora Negro  16 , Petra Quillfeldt  17 , Cecile Reed  18 , Chloe Roberts  12 , Bahram Sayyaf Dezfuli  19 , Olaf Schmidt  20 , Anthony Sturbois  21   22   23 , Andrew D Suchomel  24 , David W Thieltges  4   25 , Carl D van der Lingen  18 , Marcel T J van der Meer  4 , Inés G Viana  8 , Mark Weston  18 , Trevor J Willis  16   26 , Antoine Filion  7
Affiliations

Establishing a comprehensive host-parasite stable isotope database to unravel trophic relationships

Amandine J M Sabadel et al. Sci Data. .

Abstract

Over the past decades, stable isotopes have been infrequently used to characterise host-parasite trophic relationships. This is because we have not yet identified consistent patterns in stable isotope values between parasites and their host tissues across species, which are crucial for understanding host-parasite dynamics. To address this, we initiated a worldwide collaboration to establish a unique database of stable isotope values of novel host-parasite pairs, effectively doubling the existing data in published literature. This database includes nitrogen, carbon, and sulphur stable isotope values. We present 3213 stable isotope data entries, representing 586 previously unpublished host-parasite pairs. Additionally, while existing literature was particularly limited in sulphur isotope values, we tripled information on this crucial element. By publishing unreported host-parasite pairs from previously unsampled areas of the world and using appropriate host tissues, our dataset stands unparalleled. We anticipate that end-users will utilise our database to uncover generalisable patterns, deepening our understanding of the complexities of parasite-host relationships and driving future research efforts in stable isotope parasitology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Global distribution of host-parasite pairs. Sampling locations of all host-parasite pairs available from published literature (up to 2022; orange markers) across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments, along with our novel, unpublished dataset (blue markers) from this ParaSITE collaborative project. It is important to consider these data globally, as stable isotope baselines vary with geographic location.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Standardised step-by-step protocol for stable isotope analysis of host-parasite pairs. This template and protocol are designed to ensure consistency and accuracy of reported data and should be applied in future host-parasite stable isotope studies to facilitate reliable host-parasite comparisons and reproducible results.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Dobson, A., Lafferty, K. D., Kuris, A. M., Hechinger, R. F. & Jetz, W. Homage to Linnaeus: How many parasites? How many hosts? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences105, 11482–11489, 10.1073/pnas.0803232105 (2008). - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kuris, A. M. et al. Ecosystem energetic implications of parasite and free-living biomass in three estuaries. Nature45410.1038/nature06970 (2008). - PubMed
    1. Marcogliese, D. J. & Cone, D. K. Food webs: a plea for parasites. Trends in Ecology & Evolution12, 320–325, 10.1016/S0169-5347(97)01080-X (1997). - PubMed
    1. Boecklen, W. J., Yarnes, C. T., Cook, B. A. & James, A. C. On the use of stable isotopes in trophic ecology. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics42, 411–440, 10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-102209-144726 (2011).
    1. Sabadel, A. J. M., Stumbo, A. D. & MacLeod, C. D. Stable isotope analysis: a neglected tool for placing parasites in food webs. Journal of Helminthology93, 1–7, 10.1017/S0022149X17001201 (2019). - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources