Parasitic plants outperform predators in estuarine areas

In a study of free parasitic species at three estuaries on the Pacific coast in California and Baja California, a team of researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, the US Geological Survey and University Princeton recently identified the biomass of these above-mentioned habitats far above the top predators.

The results of large ecological and biomedical research are published in the July 24 issue of the journal Nature.

According to Armand Kuris - professor of zoology studies at the Department of Marine Ecology, Evolution and Biology (University of California, Santa Barbara) and the lead author of the study, the results have an effect on the shoulders. The role of parasites in the ecosystem that we still think about. From an ecological point of view, parasites both play a role of regulating and preventing species from growing in number and playing a role of reporting and directing the status of a particular ecosystem. For the first time, research has shown that biophysics can control the energy flow of an ecosystem.

Kuris said: 'The total energy flow in the ecosystem based on the spread processes must be very large, even greater than what we expected based on the parasite's enormous biomass. I think that the amount of energy spent on repairing host cell tissue as well as supplementary supply is also very large. Our research implies that we should devote more attention to the energy problem of disease '.

Biomass is the amount of living things in a particular environment. Biomass is expressed primarily by the mass of organisms per unit area or volume of organisms per unit volume of habitat . Until now, scientists believe that because parasites are very small in size, can only be observed by microscopy, they create small biomass in the environment while organisms live freely. like fish, birds and other carnivorous species make up the majority of biomass.

The researchers identified the biomass of the parasite and the free-living species at the three estuaries and demonstrated that the parasite was significantly biomass in the three ecosystems mentioned above. Ryan Hechinger - researcher at the Institute of Marine Sciences (University of California, Santa Barbara) and co-author of the study - said: 'Parasites with large biomass equal even greater than those of animal groups. Other weights, like birds, fish and crabs'.

Bahia San Quintín (Baja California, Mexico).(Photo: Kevin Lafferty)

The article was summed up from a five-year study with a $ 2.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health through the Ecology Program for Infectious Diseases in collaboration with many organ. In addition to Kuris, key researchers include Kevin Lafferty, a marine biologist working with the US Geological Survey, and Andrew Dobson, an ecology and evolutionary biology professor at the University. study Princeton. There are also collaborations: Leopoldina Aguirre-Macedo of Centro de Investigación y Estudios Avanzados Unidad Mérida, and Mark Torchin - scientist working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Researchers have identified the number of parasites and organisms that live in the mangrove swamp Carpinteria, Bahia San Quintín and the estuary of Estero de Punta Banda in Baja California. Their study included 199 free-living animals, 15 free-living vascular plants and 138 parasitic plant and animal species.

Lafferty said: 'The reason we want to improve research is because there are so many things we have seen for us that parasitic plants and animals are important in the ecosystem. But no one has seen them from the perspective of an ecosystem within the ecosystem. And no one has seen the parasitic flora and fauna with their mass because people always assume that they have almost no weight. We now know it's not true. '

He stressed: 'For example, at a river the number of birds is less than the number of flukes, also of parasites. If you can observe trematodes with binoculars, you probably won't worry about bird watching. '

Hechinger said: 'No one disputes the guarantee of human welfare to understand how important the ecosystem is. How can we understand one thing without taking into account its important parts? Because our research shows that parasitic plants and animals control massive biomass, so future studies will not be able to ignore them. '

According to Kuris, understanding the biomass of plant parasites as well as the burden that they place on the host species inherent will lead to new strategies for managing infectious diseases. The treatment's drafts will emphasize more on improving the host's ability to protect them against parasitic diseases and slow the energy ratio that plants and animals sign. Birth as well as pathogens take away.