Parasite-mediated changes in host traits alter food web dynamics

Parasites commonly alter the phenotype of their host, thereby influencing competitive and consumer-resource interactions. This could trigger a cascade effect on the dynamics of biological communities, but the role of parasites in ecosystem processes is poorly understood. In this study, we investigate how parasite-induced trait modifications shape the dynamics of a complex lake food web using an allometric trophic network model (ATN). We simulated infections of stage-structured fish host populations via increased maintenance costs and predation risk. Our results show that host trait modifications can significantly impact host demography, with stage-specific biomass declines up to 60%. However, less severely affected host stages buffered these effects and sustained the population. Importantly, host biomass decline altered the dynamics of species interactions and these effects cascaded through the entire community, with biomass changes observed at all trophic levels. Our findings emphasize..., , , # Data from: Parasite-mediated changes in host traits alter food web dynamics

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Authors and correspondence:
Tommi Perälä, ,
Ines Klemme, ,

Contents:

Data:
Simulation outputs

Software:
Simulator software and codes for running the simulations and producing the figures in the manuscript.

## Data

This section consists of the following files and directories

\"figure2_data.csv\" - Simulation output data for producing Figure 2 in the manuscript as a comma-separated list. First is the title row followed by the data. The figure illustrates changes in the biomass of 30 functional guilds (guild labels are represented in the column 'guild') in a lake food web. These changes are induced by increased host maintenance costs due to parasitic infections, with the maximum increase set to 10%, 25%, and 50% (column 'parameters'). Percentage changes in biomass, relative to the absence of parasitism, are produced for three scenarios based on the susceptible host or hosts: perch (column 'P'), whitef...