Marine Parasites and Disease in the Era of Global Climate Change

Abstract

Climate change affects ecological processes and interactions, including parasitism. Because parasites are natural components of ecological systems, as well as agents of outbreak and disease-induced mortality, it is important to summarize current knowledge of the sensitivity of parasites to climate and identify how to better predict their responses to it. This need is particularly great in marine systems, where the responses of parasites to climate variables are less well studied than those in other biomes. As examples of climate's influence on parasitism increase, they enable generalizations of expected responses as well as insight into useful study approaches, such as thermal performance curves that compare the vital rates of hosts and parasites when exposed to several temperatures across a gradient. For parasites not killed by rising temperatures, some simple physiological rules, including the tendency of temperature to increase the metabolism of ectotherms and increase oxygen stress on hosts, suggest that parasites’ intensity and pathologies might increase. In addition to temperature, climate-induced changes in dissolved oxygen, ocean acidity, salinity, and host and parasite distributions also affect parasitism and disease, but these factors are much less studied. Finally, because parasites are constituents of ecological communities, we must consider indirect and secondary effects stemming from climate-induced changes in host–parasite interactions, which may not be evident if these interactions are studied in isolation.