Ecosystem Function

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Like “mobile data recorders,” these horn snails in a salt marsh at Morro Bay, California, reflect in their complement of trematode parasites the predator-prey relationships occurring in the salt marsh during their lifetime. Photo credit: Kevin D. Lafferty, USGS

Scientists at the USGS Western Ecological Research Center and the University of California, Santa Barbara, are developing libraries of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I (COI) gene from easy-to-identify trematode cercariae to help in the identification of more difficult trematode stages by extracting DNA, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) amplification and comparison with sequences from the libraries. By surveying the trematode parasite population in resident horn snails, a hub for more than 20 trematode species, whose lifestyle requires multiple sequential hosts, the scientists strive to develop trematodes as indicators of ecosystem health in estuaries along the Pacific Coast.

Read more about the parasite studies:

• Study Shows Parasites Outweigh Predators
• Parasites, the Thread of Food Webs?
• Biologists Count Parasites to Assess Health of Marsh

For more information contact Kevin D. Lafferty, Western Ecological Research Center.

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