What controls occurrence of parasitic trematodes in a marine snail?
Byers, James*,1, Blakeslee, April1, Linder, Ernst2, Cooper, Andrew3, Maguire, Tim4, 1 Department of Zoology, Durham, NH, USA2 Dept. of Math & Statistics, Durham, NH, USA3 Dept. of Natural Resources, Durham, NH, USA4 Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Buzzards Bay, MA, USA ABSTRACT- Parasitic trematodes typically have life cycles in which they progress through hosts at increasing trophic levels, e.g. from a snail to a fish to a shorebird. To understand the determinants of trematode infection within the snail host, Littorina littorea, we quantified the prevalence (and species richness) of trematodes within 28 snail populations throughout New England. We examined over 5000 snails from a wide range of coastal, estuarine, and island sites. Overall prevalence rates of snail infection varied between 0.6% and 47%. All five trematode species that had been identified in the literature were detected, although two species, Cryptocotyle lingua and Cercaria parvicaudata, accounted for over 98% of all i
