Indirect Effects Explain the Role of Parasites in Ecosystems.

Parasites are increasingly recognized as integral members of ecological communities, but their ecological effects remain less clear. Here, I propose that, to uncover the unique role of parasites, we must understand their indirect effects, which differ in important ways from those caused by predators. Similar to predators, parasites can cause density-mediated indirect effects (DMIEs) through their consumptive effects, and trait-mediated indirect effects (TMIEs) through their nonconsumptive effects; however, because they can consume a host without killing it, parasites can also trigger TMIEs through their consumptive effects. I consider the relative importance of each parasite-induced indirect interaction type and demonstrate their population-, community-, and ecosystem-level consequences. This paper contributes to recent efforts to unite predator-prey and parasite-host theory under a general consumer-resource framework.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Trends in Parasitology

• Publication date

  2019-10-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.pt.2019.07.007PMID 31444059
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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