Parasite adaptation to extreme conditions in a desert environment

Abstract

Deserts represent universally recognized extreme environments for animal life. This paper documents the highly specialized adaptations of Pseudodiplorchis americanus, a monogenean parasite of the desert toad, Scaphiopus couchii. Building on a long-term record of parasite population ecology (continuing since the early 1980s), field studies focus on the effects of severe drought in the Sonoran Desert, Arizona, in the mid 1990s. This provides a test of the ability of the host-parasite system to tolerate exceptional perturbation. The analysis provides new insight into parasite infection dynamics in a natural wildlife system through integration of host and parasite population age structure. The environmental check interrupted host recruitment in 1993-95 and parasite recruitment in 1995-97. This produced an imprint in age structure and infection levels recognizable over several years: parasite recruitment failure reduced transmission 2-3 years later. The host (maximum life span 17 years) tolerated the disruption but the impact was more serious for the parasite (life span 3 years) leading to extinction of some previously stable populations. Despite this demonstration of a rare event exacerbating external environmental constraints, experimental studies suggest that the internal (host) environment normally creates the most severe conditions affecting P. americanus. Only about 3% of parasites survive from invasion until first reproduction. Post-invasion factors including host immunity, characteristic of most parasite life cycles, constitute a greater constraint upon survival than external conditions, even in a desert environment.