Introduced and Native Populations of a Marine Parasitic Castrator: Variation in Prevalence of the Rhizocephalan Loxothylacus Panopaei in Xanthid Crabs

Patterns of prevalence and host specificity of the parasitic castrator, Loxothylacus panopaei, in a region of parasite introduction (Chesapeake Bay, Maryland-Virginia) were compared to those within its native geographic range (Indian River Lagoon, Florida). Prevalence in five species of xanthid crabs was measured at several spatial and temporal scales along the east coast of North America. The parasite infected Panopeus lacustris, P. simpsoni, P. obessus, Eurypanopeus depressus, Dispanopeus sayi (reported as a host for the first time), and Rhithropanopeus harrisii, but did not infect P. herbstii. The overall prevalence of infection in over 10,000 crabs was low (< 1%); but prevalence exhibited significant large scale geographic variation from 0-83% in the parasite’s disjunct distribution along 2750 km of coast and 14 degrees of latitude from New Jersey to western Florida. The introduced range of the parasite included most of Chesapeake Bay, outer Delmarva Peninsula, and North Carolina sounds; but the parasite was not found from South Carolina to Cape Canaveral, Florida. The native range extended from the Gulf of Mexico and eastern Florida up through the Indian River Lagoon. Significant temporal variability of infections occurred between 2 yrs along the geographic range of sampling, with the parasite occurring sporadically (0-47%) in introduced regions of North Carolina and (0-83%) in coastal Virginia. The prevalence of parasitism also exhibited significant local variation among sites within the introduced region of Chesapeake Bay (0-91%) and the native region of the Indian River Lagoon, Florida (0-9%). Parasite prevalence within the Indian River Lagoon exhibited long-term (12 yrs) relative temporal stability at about 7.5% in P. lacustris. In contrast, the parasite exhibited epidemic out breaks (0-72%) in a 15-yr record at the Rhode River subestuary of Chesapeake Bay following its slow spread over 200 km in 30 yrs from introduction in the lower bay in 1963. Size of infected hosts was relatively constant for each crab species, resulting in all sizes of R. harrisii and E. depressus being infected but larger P. lacustris not being infected. Despite the parasite’s impact on crab reproduction, the host-parasite interaction is apparently stabilized by shifting combinations of four factors: host species composition; recruitment dynamics, especially slow parasite dispersal; patchy host dispersion in oyster reefs; and reservoirs of uninfected hosts resulting from refuges in host size (e.g., large P. lacustris) or host habitat distribution (e.g., low salinity for R. harrisii). Ecological and evolutionary models of host-parasite population dynamics are often based on assumptions about spatial and temporal variation of infections as factors which determine the stability of the parasite-host interaction and allow the persistence of a deleterious parasite within a host population (May and Anderson, 1979; Anderson and May, 1979; Hassell and May, 1989). Despite their theoretical importance, the interaction of spatial and temporal variables is rarely measured for natural populations of marine parasites (Lauckner, 1983; Craig et al., 1989; Lively, 1989; Crosby and Roberts, 1990). Host species diversity and infection demographics are key attributes of host specificity that define the dynamics of parasite resource utilization (Caswell, 1978; Hood and Welch, 198 BULLETIN OF MARINE SCIENCE, 61(2): 197–214, 1997 1980; Bush and Holmes, 1986a,b; Stock and Holmes, 1987). Parasites are typically characterized as generalized or specialized, and host life stages are assessed for vulnerability to infection (Esch et al., 1990). However, host specificity in marine parasites is not well studied (Goggin et al., 1989). Population dynamics of many parasitic species are characterized by epidemics, and epidemics in terrestrial systems often result from introductions of exotic pathogens into new geographic regions and hosts (Elton, 1958; Bailey, 1975). Although introductions of invertebrate species have been common in estuarine and protected coastal ecosystems for 300 yrs (Carlton, 1987; 1989; 1992; Carlton and Geller, 1993), introductions of parasites in these habitats have been documented only rarely. For example, the apparent introduction of the haplosporidian Minchinia nelsoni into Delaware Bay in 1959 spread rapidly to Chesapeake Bay, producing epidemic infections and mortality of oysters (Andrews, 1979). Epidemics and rapid spread of disease in some marine ecosystems (Lessios et al., 1984) could be attributed speculatively to introductions of parasites to new regions and/or to new host species. However, the histories of introductions for parasitic and non-parasitic species alike are often poorly understood in marine ecosystems (Carlton, 1996). Population dynamics of parasitic castrators provide insight into the ecological stability of host-parasite interactions and the evolution of reduced virulence (Kuris, 1974; Obrebski, 1975; Levin and Pimentel, 1981). Parasitic castrators act in a manner similar to entomophagous parasitoids, in that they are relatively large compared to the host and they eliminate the host’s reproductive contribution (Kuris, 1974). Although parasitic castrators do not kill their hosts as do parasitoids, they may be important regulators of host population density (Kuris, 1974). Marine parasitic castrators may have significant impacts on ecologically and commercially important hosts (Blower and Roughgarden, 1987a,b; 1988; 1989; Kuris and Lafferty, 1992). Imposing reproductive mortality upon the host, these parasites may be viewed as evolving minimal virulence by attacking primarily gonadal tissues while leaving the host otherwise apparently unharmed (Obrebski, 1975). Thus, at the level of the individual host, the parasite has evolved a stable interaction; whereas paradoxically at the level of the population, the host-parasite relationship may be highly unstable. The scale of spatial patchiness and temporal variability of parasite prevalence, as well as host specificity, are important variables which reflect parasite dispersal and host vulnerability, and which affect stability of the host-parasite interaction at the population level (Reeve, 1990; Hassell and May, 1989; Comins et al., 1992; Kuris and Lafferty, 1992). However, these interactions are poorly understood in marine parasitic castrators. Rhizocephalan cirripedes are important parasitic castrators of anomuran and brachyuran crabs in marine ecosystems. Many species are considered to be host specialists, while others have broad geographic distributions and infect several related host species (Boschma, 1955; Reinhard, 1956). However, analyses of spatial variation in rhizocephalan infections across large geographic distances are unusual (Heath, 1971; O’Brien, 1984; Weng, 1987; Hochberg et al., 1992), and characteristics of their long-term temporal variation are