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The potential of zooplankton in constraining chytrid epidemics in phytoplankton hosts
Fungal diseases threaten natural and man‐made ecosystems. Chytridiomycota (chytrids) infect a wide host range, including phytoplankton species that form the basis of aquatic food webs and produce roughly half of Earth's oxygen. However, blooms of large or toxic phytoplankton form trophic bottle...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
John Wiley and Sons Inc.
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7003484/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31544240 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2900 |
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author | Frenken, Thijs Miki, Takeshi Kagami, Maiko Van de Waal, Dedmer B. Van Donk, Ellen Rohrlack, Thomas Gsell, Alena S. |
author_facet | Frenken, Thijs Miki, Takeshi Kagami, Maiko Van de Waal, Dedmer B. Van Donk, Ellen Rohrlack, Thomas Gsell, Alena S. |
author_sort | Frenken, Thijs |
collection | PubMed |
description | Fungal diseases threaten natural and man‐made ecosystems. Chytridiomycota (chytrids) infect a wide host range, including phytoplankton species that form the basis of aquatic food webs and produce roughly half of Earth's oxygen. However, blooms of large or toxic phytoplankton form trophic bottlenecks, as they are inedible to zooplankton. Chytrids infecting inedible phytoplankton provide a trophic link to zooplankton by producing edible zoospores of high nutritional quality. By grazing chytrid zoospores, zooplankton may induce a trophic cascade, as a decreased zoospore density will reduce new infections. Conversely, fewer infections will not produce enough zoospores to sustain long‐term zooplankton growth and reproduction. This intricate balance between zoospore density necessary for zooplankton energetic demands (growth/survival), and the loss in new infections (and thus new zoospores) because of grazing was tested empirically. To this end, we exposed a cyanobacterial host (Planktothrix rubescens) infected by a chytrid (Rizophydium megarrhizum) to a grazer density gradient (the rotifer Keratella cf. cochlearis). Rotifers survived and reproduced on a zoospore diet, but the Keratella population growth was limited by the amount of zoospores provided by chytrid infections, resulting in a situation where zooplankton survived but were restricted in their ability to control disease in the cyanobacterial host. We subsequently developed and parameterized a dynamical food‐chain model using an allometric relationship for clearance rate to assess theoretically the potential of different‐sized zooplankton groups to restrict disease in phytoplankton hosts. Our model suggests that smaller‐sized zooplankton may have a high potential to reduce chytrid infections on inedible phytoplankton. Together, our results point out the complexity of three‐way interactions between hosts, parasites, and grazers and highlight that trophic cascades are not always sustainable and may depend on the grazer's energetic demand. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7003484 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | John Wiley and Sons Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-70034842020-02-10 The potential of zooplankton in constraining chytrid epidemics in phytoplankton hosts Frenken, Thijs Miki, Takeshi Kagami, Maiko Van de Waal, Dedmer B. Van Donk, Ellen Rohrlack, Thomas Gsell, Alena S. Ecology Articles Fungal diseases threaten natural and man‐made ecosystems. Chytridiomycota (chytrids) infect a wide host range, including phytoplankton species that form the basis of aquatic food webs and produce roughly half of Earth's oxygen. However, blooms of large or toxic phytoplankton form trophic bottlenecks, as they are inedible to zooplankton. Chytrids infecting inedible phytoplankton provide a trophic link to zooplankton by producing edible zoospores of high nutritional quality. By grazing chytrid zoospores, zooplankton may induce a trophic cascade, as a decreased zoospore density will reduce new infections. Conversely, fewer infections will not produce enough zoospores to sustain long‐term zooplankton growth and reproduction. This intricate balance between zoospore density necessary for zooplankton energetic demands (growth/survival), and the loss in new infections (and thus new zoospores) because of grazing was tested empirically. To this end, we exposed a cyanobacterial host (Planktothrix rubescens) infected by a chytrid (Rizophydium megarrhizum) to a grazer density gradient (the rotifer Keratella cf. cochlearis). Rotifers survived and reproduced on a zoospore diet, but the Keratella population growth was limited by the amount of zoospores provided by chytrid infections, resulting in a situation where zooplankton survived but were restricted in their ability to control disease in the cyanobacterial host. We subsequently developed and parameterized a dynamical food‐chain model using an allometric relationship for clearance rate to assess theoretically the potential of different‐sized zooplankton groups to restrict disease in phytoplankton hosts. Our model suggests that smaller‐sized zooplankton may have a high potential to reduce chytrid infections on inedible phytoplankton. Together, our results point out the complexity of three‐way interactions between hosts, parasites, and grazers and highlight that trophic cascades are not always sustainable and may depend on the grazer's energetic demand. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2019-10-18 2020-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7003484/ /pubmed/31544240 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2900 Text en © 2019 The Authors. Ecology published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of Ecological Society of America This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Articles Frenken, Thijs Miki, Takeshi Kagami, Maiko Van de Waal, Dedmer B. Van Donk, Ellen Rohrlack, Thomas Gsell, Alena S. The potential of zooplankton in constraining chytrid epidemics in phytoplankton hosts |
title | The potential of zooplankton in constraining chytrid epidemics in phytoplankton hosts |
title_full | The potential of zooplankton in constraining chytrid epidemics in phytoplankton hosts |
title_fullStr | The potential of zooplankton in constraining chytrid epidemics in phytoplankton hosts |
title_full_unstemmed | The potential of zooplankton in constraining chytrid epidemics in phytoplankton hosts |
title_short | The potential of zooplankton in constraining chytrid epidemics in phytoplankton hosts |
title_sort | potential of zooplankton in constraining chytrid epidemics in phytoplankton hosts |
topic | Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7003484/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31544240 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ecy.2900 |
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