Parasitic infection: a buffer against ocean acidification?

Recently, there has been a concerted research effort by marine scientists to quantify the sensitivity of marine organisms to ocean acidification (OA). Empirical data generated by this research have been used to predict changes to marine ecosystem health, biodiversity and productivity that will be caused by continued acidification. These studies have also found that the effects of OA on marine organisms can be significantly modified by additional abiotic stressors (e.g. temperature or oxygen) and biotic interactions (e.g. competition or predation). To date, however, the effects of parasitic infection on the sensitivity of marine organisms to OA have been largely ignored. We show that parasitic infection significantly altered the response of a marine gastropod to simulated OA conditions by reducing the mortality of infected individuals relative to uninfected conspecifics. Without the inclusion of infection data, our analysis would not have detected the significant effect of pH on host mor...

近年来，海洋科学家们协同开展研究工作，以量化海洋生物对海洋酸化（Ocean Acidification, OA）的敏感性。此项研究生成的实测数据已被用于预测持续酸化将引发的海洋生态系统健康、生物多样性及生产力变化。相关研究还发现，海洋酸化对海洋生物的影响可通过额外的非生物胁迫因子（如温度或溶解氧）以及生物相互作用（如竞争或捕食）得到显著调控。然而迄今为止，寄生感染对海洋生物海洋酸化敏感性的影响在很大程度上仍被忽视。本研究表明，相较于未感染的同种个体，寄生感染通过降低受感染个体的死亡率，显著改变了一种海洋腹足类动物对模拟海洋酸化条件的响应。若未纳入感染相关数据，我们的分析将无法检测到酸碱度（pH）对宿主的显著影响……