Cestode parasitism in invasive and native brine shrimps (Artemia spp.) as a possible factor promoting the rapid invasion of A. franciscana in the Mediterranean region

Abstract

Artemia franciscana is an invasive crustacean expanding its range in hypersaline wetlands in the Mediterranean region and replacing native Artemia parthenogenetica and Artemia salina. Native brine shrimps are known as intermediate hosts of cestodes; infected individuals exhibit changes in their behaviour and appearance, thus facilitating the parasite transmission to the avian hosts by predation. To assess whether invasive brine shrimps participate in the cestode life cycles to the same extent as the native species, we examined the natural infections in seven populations of Artemia spp. along the southern coast of Spain and Portugal: three populations of each A. franciscana and A. parthenogenetica and one population of A. salina. Ten cestode species were found in A. parthenogenetica, while only six were recorded in each of A. salina and A. franciscana. The overall infection was consistently higher in native than in invasive populations. For a particular cestode species, the prevalence or abundance was significantly higher in a native population for 54 pairwise comparisons and only higher for an invasive population for 4 pairwise comparisons. These results suggest that cestodes may influence competitive interactions between native and invasive brine shrimps, thus partly explaining the invasive success of A. franciscana.

The parasitism of Flamingolepis liguloides (Gervais, 1847) (Cestoda, Hymenolepididae) in Artemia salina (Crustacea, Branchiopoda) in two saline lakes in Algeria

“…Even if at first sight males seem to be more infected than females, probably because of the sexratio (2.79) being in favour of males in this period (Amarouayache et al 2004), statistical data showed no significant differences between the two sexes. Georgiev et al (2007) brought back the same conclusions for Iberian Artemia populations. Parasitic intensity is low in Algerian populations (less than 3 cysticercoids per individual).…”

“…The latter authors studied the distribution of the parasites in various populations of Artemia from the French salterns and highlighted the role of brine shrimp as intermediate host of cestodes parasitizing flamingos. Amat et al (1991a, b), Varó et al (2000), Georgiev et al (2005Georgiev et al ( , 2007 and Sánchez et al (2006Sánchez et al ( , 2007Sánchez et al ( , 2009) studied cestode parasitism in Spanish Artemia populations and their effect on the behaviour of the intermediate host.…”

Larval helminths in the invasive American brine shrimp Artemia franciscana throughout its annual cycle

“…Native brine shrimps in the Mediterranean are intermediate hosts of 12 species of avian cestodes parasitic as adults in flamingos, gulls, grebes, shorebirds or ducks (Gabrion et al 1982;Thiéry et al 1990;Robert and Gabrion 1991;Amat et al 1991b;Mura 1995;Georgiev et al 2005Georgiev et al , 2007Vasileva et al 2009;Amarouayache et al 2009). Both adult shrimps and metanauplii participate in cestode life cycles (Redón et al 2011).…”

Ecosystem services provided by waterbirds

“…as the main macroinvertebrate (Sánchez, Green & Castellanos, 2006). However, a diverse community of waterbirds preying on the shrimps maintains up to 15 species of cestodes within the Artemia population, each using a specific waterbird group as final hosts (Georgiev et al, 2005(Georgiev et al, , 2007. Thus, these cestodes constitute an important fraction of the total invertebrate diversity in these systems.…”