Marine Biology

, Volume 160, Issue 4, pp 867–875 | Cite as

Sensory cues associated with host detection in a marine parasitic isopod

Original Paper
First Online:
Received:
Accepted:

Abstract

Parasite population dynamics and the evolution of life history characteristics are strongly associated with the process of host infection. Parasites with free-living life stages have a narrow window to infect a host and have evolved a number of mechanisms to detect and locate a host. Cymothoa excisa is a parasitic isopod that is commonly found on the Atlantic croaker, Micropogonias undulatus, in the Gulf of Mexico. Here, we determined the infection window that constrains host-searching behavior in C. excisa and tested the behavioral response of the free-swimming larvae (mancae) to visual and chemical cues. Mancae were found to have an infection window of 7 days. Mancae were responsive to both visual and chemical cues. Our findings are the first to show that cymothoid isopods use visual and chemical cues to locate a host and that individuals display a host-locating strategy that maximizes host encounter rate, while reducing energy expenditure.

Keywords

Fenton Brood Pouch Swimming Time Sterile Seawater Atlantic Croaker 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We thank Zach Darnell, Catalina Cuellar and Justin Crow for their help and input during field collections, experimentation and comments on the manuscript. We would also like to thank B. Walther and E. Buskey for comments on a final draft. We thank the UTMSI stats group for their help on experimental design and statistical analyses. We would also like to thank the Houston Big Game Fishing Club for the funding. Lastly, we would like to thank the crew of the R/V Katy for assisting with the sampling.

Supplementary material

227_2012_2140_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (87 kb)
Online Resource 1. Light curve from the preliminary light intensity experiment to identify light intensity that the manca best responded (Light = 25.009e-0.442(Filter), R2 = 0.99). A series of filters were made by using one through nine pieces of window screen. A one-way ANOVA tested the number of manca swimming up as a function of filter number. Manca showed highest positive phototaxis to filter 3 (F = 8.25, d.f. = 35, p = 0.007, Tukey HSD post hoc test, p < 0.05), which was used in the shadow response experiment. (PDF 87 kb)

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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Marine Science InstituteThe University of Texas at AustinAustinUSA

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