TY - JOUR

T1 - Temperature affects predation of schistosome-competent snails by a novel invader, the marbled crayfish Procambarus virginalis

AU - Faiad, Sara M.

AU - Williams, Maureen A.

AU - Goodman, Maurice

AU - Sokolow, Susanne

AU - Olden, Julien D.

AU - Mitchell, Kaitlyn

AU - Andriantsoa, Ranja

AU - Jones, J.P.G.

AU - Andriamaro, Luciano

AU - Ravoniarimbinina, Pascaline

AU - Rasamy, Jeanne

AU - Ravelomanana, Tsilavina

AU - Ravelotafita, Salohy

AU - Ravo, Ranaivosolo

AU - Rabinowitz, Peter

AU - De Leo, Giulio A.

AU - Wood, Chelsea L.

N1 - Copyright: © 2023 Faiad et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

PY - 2023/9/13

Y1 - 2023/9/13

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Animals

KW - Astacoidea

KW - Biomphalaria

KW - Humans

KW - Predatory Behavior

KW - Schistosoma

KW - Schistosomatidae

KW - Temperature

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0290615

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0290615

M3 - Article

C2 - 37703262

VL - 18

SP - e0290615

JO - PLoS ONE

JF - PLoS ONE

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 9

M1 - e0290615

ER -