Migratory hosts can maintain the high-dose/refuge effect in a structured host-parasite system: The case of sea lice and salmon.

Abstract

Migration can reduce parasite burdens in migratory hosts, but it connects populations and can drive disease dynamics in domestic species. Farmed salmon are infested by sea louse parasites, often carried by migratory wild salmonids, resulting in a costly problem for industry and risk to wild populations when farms amplify louse numbers. Chemical treatment can control lice, but resistance has evolved in many salmon‐farming regions. Resistance has, however, been slow to evolve in the north‐east Pacific Ocean, where large wild‐salmon populations harbour large sea louse populations. Using a mathematical model of host–macroparasite dynamics, we explored the roles of domestic, wild oceanic and connective migratory host populations in maintaining treatment susceptibility in associated sea lice. Our results show that a large wild salmon population, unexposed to direct infestation by lice from farms; high levels of on‐farm treatment; and a healthy migratory host population are all critical to slowing or stopping the evolution of treatment resistance. Our results reproduce the “high‐dose/refuge effect,” from the agricultural literature, with the added requirement of a migratory host population to maintain treatment susceptibility. This work highlights the role that migratory hosts may play in shared wildlife/livestock disease, where evolution can occur in ecological time.