Bellamya chinensis and Lymnaea stagnalis mortality in the presence of Macrobdella decora
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55632/pwvas.v89i1.254Keywords:
aquatic ecology, food webs, trophic levels, leeches (Macrobdella decora), snails (Bellamya chinensis and Lymnaea stagnalis)Abstract
Food webs are complex and each trophic level guides the dynamic stability of the whole food web. As humans cause the loss of piscivores and zooplanktivores from lake food webs, parasitic leeches, such as Macrobdella decora, lose potential host organisms. In the absence of a host, it has been suggested M. decora will parasitize freshwater snails, but there is a lack of research supporting this. At the University of Notre Dame Environmental Research Center – East, the snail species Bellamya chinensis and Lymnaea stagnalis have similar niches and are prevalent in the lakes, so they were used as research species. Trials were run to observe the mortality of the two snail species in the presence of leeches. The snail species were tested while in the same tank and different tanks. Leeches did parasitize B. chinensis. However, L. stagnalis did have a significantly higher average mortality than B. chinensis in the same tank (treatment: p-value: 0.022; control: p-value: 0.044) and in different tanks (p-value: 0.001), but leech presence did not significantly (p-value: 0.25) change snail mortality. An exact reason for snail species being the factor that controlled snail mortality could not be determined. However, a possible explanation was due to unfiltered fecal material and copper contamination in the trial tanks. Copper is a lethal metal to most gastropods.
References
Boit, A., Martinez, N. D., Williams, R. J., & Gaedke, U. (2012). Mechanistic theory and modelling of complex food‐web dynamics in Lake Constance. Ecology letters, 15(6), 594-602.
Brönmark, C. (1992). Leech predation on juvenile freshwater snails: effects of size, species and substrate. Oecologia, 91(4), 526-529.
Brown, K. M., & Strouse, B. H. (1988). Relative vulnerability of six freshwater gastropods to the leech Nephelopsis obscura (Verrill). Freshwater Biology, 19(2), 157-165.
Cardinale, B. J., Duffy, J. E., Gonzalez, A., Hooper, D. U., Perrings, C., Venail, P., ... & Kinzig, A. P. (2012). Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. Nature, 486(7401), 59-67.
Carey, M. P., & Zimmerman, C. E. (2014). Physiological and ecological effects of increasing temperature on fish production in lakes of Arctic Alaska. Ecology and evolution, 4(10), 1981-1993.
Carpenter, S. R., Kitchell, J. F., & Hodgson, J. R. (1985). Cascading trophic interactions and lake productivity. BioScience, 35(10), 634-639.
Crowder, L. B., Drenner, R. W., Kerfoot, W. C., McQueen, D. J., Mills, E. L., Sommer, U., ... & Vanni, M. J. (1988). Food web interactions in lakes. In Complex interactions in lake communities. Springer New York, 141-160.
Cunha, I., Mangas-Ramirez, E., & Guilhermino, L. (2007). Effects of copper and cadmium on cholinesterase and glutathione S-transferase activities of two marine gastropods (Monodonta lineata and Nucella lapillus). Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part C: Toxicology & Pharmacology, 145(4), 648-657.
De Stasio, B. T., Hill, D. K., Kleinhans, J. M., Nibbelink, N. P., & Magnuson, J. J. (1996). Potential effects of global climate change on small north-temperate lakes: Physics, fish, and plankton. Limnology and Oceanography, 41, 1136-1149.
Dobson, A., Lodge, D., Alder, J., Cumming, G. S., Keymer, J., McGlade, J., ... & Wall, D. 2006). Habitat loss, trophic collapse, and the decline of ecosystem services. Ecology, 87(8), 1915-1924.
Dunne, J. A., Williams, R. J., & Martinez, N. D. (2002). Food-web structure and network theory: the role of connectance and size. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99(20), 12917-12922.
Freshwater leech. (n.d.). Retrieved July 03, 2016, from http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/freshwater_leech.htm
Myers, R. A., Baum, J. K., Shepherd, T. D., Powers, S. P., & Peterson, C. H. (2007). Cascading effects of the loss of apex predatory sharks from a coastal ocean. Science, 315(5820), 1846-1850.
Nickels, N. (2011). Predation-induced responses of freshwater snails through morphological defenses and avoidance behavior.
Pace, M. L., Cole, J. J., Carpenter, S. R., & Kitchell, J. F. (1999). Trophic cascades revealed in diverse ecosystems. Trends in ecology & evolution, 14(12), 483-488.
Paine, R. T. (1966). Food web complexity and species diversity. American Naturalist, 65-75.
Ravera, O. (1976). Effects of heavy metals (cadmium, copper, chromium and lead) on a freshwater snail: Biomphalaria glabrata Say (Gastropoda, Prosobranchia). Malacologia, 16(1), 231-236.
Rooney, N., McCann, K., Gellner, G., & Moore, J. C. (2006). Structural asymmetry and the stability of diverse food webs. Nature, 442(7100), 265-269.
Schalk, G., Forbes, M. R., & Weatherhead, P. J. (2002). Developmental plasticity and growth rates of green frog (Rana clamitans) embryos and tadpoles in relation to a leech (Macrobdella decora) predator. Copeia, 2002(2), 445-449.
Studio, R. (2012). RStudio: integrated development environment for R. RStudio Inc, Boston, Massachusetts.
Sura, S. A., & Mahon, H. (2012) Effects of competition and predation on the feeding rate of freshwater snails.
Terborgh, J., & Estes, J. A. (Eds.). (2013). Trophic cascades: predators, prey, and the changing dynamics of nature. Island Press, 4, 55-56.
Vermeij, G. J., & Covich, A. P. (1978). Coevolution of freshwater gastropods and their predators. American Naturalist, 833-843.
Watson, R. T., Meira Filho, L. G., Sanhueza, E., & Janetos, A. (1992). Greenhouse Gases: Sources and Sinks, Climate Change 1992: The Supplementary Report to the IPCC Scientific Assessment JT Houghton, BA Callander, SK Varney, 25–46.
Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts - WICCI : Climate Change. (2009). Retrieved July 02, 2016, from http://www.wicci.wisc.edu/climate-change.php
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Proceedings of the West Virginia Academy of Science applies the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) license to works we publish. By virtue of their appearance in this open access journal, articles are free to use, with proper attribution, in educational and other non-commercial settings.
