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other·infectious disease, epidemiology, preclinical research, animal science·PMC10499222

Temperature affects predation of schistosome-competent snails by a novel invader, the marbled crayfish Procambarus virginalis

PLOS ONE · 17 authors, 11 centres

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TL;DR

This laboratory experiment tested how temperature and other factors affect the marbled crayfish's consumption of snails that transmit schistosomiasis. The key result is that crayfish predation peaked at a warm temperature of about 27.5°C, but was not influenced by the snail species or whether the snails were infected.

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Per-capita consumption increased with crayfish body size but was not affected by snail species or infection status. The study is limited to controlled laboratory conditions and does not measure effects on natural snail populations or human disease outcomes. Results suggest marbled crayfish are voracious snail predators under optimal thermal conditions, providing a foundation for future field studies on their potential ecological role in schistosomiasis control.

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other

SPECIALTY

infectious disease

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ORIGINAL PAPER

PMC10499222

Temperature affects predation of schistosome-competent snails by a novel invader, the marbled crayfish Procambarus virginalis

PLOS ONE

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ABSTRACT

The human burden of environmentally transmitted infectious diseases can depend strongly on ecological factors, including the presence or absence of natural enemies. The marbled crayfish ( Procambarus virginalis ) is a novel invasive species that can tolerate a wide range of ecological conditions and colonize diverse habitats. Marbled crayfish first appeared in Madagascar in 2005 and quickly spread across the country, overlapping with the distribution of freshwater snails that serve as the intermediate host of schistosomiasis–a parasitic disease of poverty with human prevalence ranging up to 94% in Madagascar. It has been hypothesized that the marbled crayfish may serve as a predator of schistosome-competent snails in areas where native predators cannot and yet no systematic study to date has been conducted to estimate its predation rate on snails. Here, we experimentally assessed marbled crayfish consumption of uninfected and infected schistosome-competent snails ( Biomphalaria glabrata and Bulinus truncatus ) across a range of temperatures, reflective of the habitat range of the marbled crayfish in Madagascar. We found that the relationship between crayfish consumption and temperature is unimodal with a peak at ~27.5°C. Per-capita consumption increased with body size and was not affected either by snail species or their infectious status. We detected a possible satiation effect, i.e., a small but significant reduction in per-capita consumption rate over the 72-hour duration of the predation experiment. Our results suggest that ecological parameters, such as temperature and crayfish weight, influence rates of consumption and, in turn, the potential impact of the marbled crayfish invasion on snail host populations.

CITATION EXPORT

Sara M. Faiad, Maureen A. Williams, Maurice Goodman et al.. Temperature affects predation of schistosome-competent snails by a novel invader, the marbled crayfish Procambarus virginalis. PLOS ONE. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290615

AUTHORS

17 · 11 CENTRES

Sara M. Faiad, Maureen A. Williams, Maurice Goodman, Susanne Sokolow, Julian D. Olden, Kaitlyn Mitchell, Ranja Andriantsoa, Julia Patricia Gordon Jones, Luciano Andriamaro, Pascaline Ravoniarimbinina, Jeanne Rasamy, Tsilavina Ravelomanana, Salohy Ravelotafita, Ranaivosolo Ravo, Peter Rabinowitz, Giulio A. De Leo, Chelsea L. Wood

1 School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States of America
2 Department of Biology, McDaniel College, Westminster, MD, United States of America
3 Hopkins Marine Station, Dept. of Oceans and of Earth System Science, Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States of America
4 Marine Science Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, United States of America
5 Réseau International Schistosomiase Environnement Aménagement et Lutte (RISEAL) Madagascar, Madagascar
6 School of Natural Science, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, United Kingdom
7 Department of Zoology and Animal Biodiversity, University of Antananarivo, Antananarivo, Madagascar
8 Department of Environmental/Occupational Health Sciences, Global Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States of America
9 Center for One Health Research (COHR), University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States of America
10 Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States of America
Universita del Salento, ITALY

EDITOR / REVIEWER

Giorgio Mancinelli