Interactions of Intraspecific, Interspecific, and Apparent Competition with Host‐Pathogen Population Dynamics

Abstract

I investigated the interactions of intra— and interspecific competition with parasitism for populations of two terrestrial isopods, Porcellio scaber and Porcellio laevis, infected with a lethal virus. In field experiments, I varied densities of one or both isopod species in enclosures in which food and virus presence were also manipulated. I estimated the effects of intra— and interspecific competition, additional food, and virus infection on both the survival of P. scaber and the prevalence of the virus. In uninfected populations, intraspecific and interspecific competition negatively affected isopod survival, although food resources had no effect. In infected treatments, interspecific competition produced higher levels of virus prevalence than did intraspecific competition. Virus infection and reduced food interacted to produce higher overall mortality in interspecific competition treatments than in intraspecific competition treatments. The lack of significant effect of food on competition suggests that interference interactions rather than resource competition predominated. This mechanism is supported by a laboratory study in which total food availability was controlled. These results indicate that competition and parasitism interacted to produce the observed mortality patterns, and that ignoring mortality due to the virus would produce apparent interspecific competition. The data suggest that the impact of P. laevis on P. scaber involves both direct and indirect effects.