PARASITOLOGY

Ecology of Parasites
Hosts as an Environment
- Ecology
o Study of relationships between
organisms and their environments
- Parasitology
o Branch of ecology
o Taxonomy, transmission, population
dynamics, evolutionary history
o Spores, eggs, and often juveniles must
also survive abiotic conditions
- Host-parasite relationship
o Host: organism being exploited,
provides the nutrients, and have the
mechanisms to maintain these nutrients
in the body
o Parasite exhibit traits that allow them to
▪ Exploit living environments
▪ Increase probability of finding
hosts
o Evolutionary changes in hosts parallel
adaptive changes in parasites
o As the host evolves, so does the
parasite Parasite Populations

A Parasite’s Ecological Niche

- Niche: function or position of a species
within an ecological community
- Resources, abiotic conditions provided by
the host
- Parasites encounter a wide variety of
environmental conditions during their life
cycles
- Ex: human digestive tract
o Parasite’s perspective: all organisms are
complex environments with many
separate habitats
- Site specificity is actually evidence of - Quantitative descriptors
parasite adaptation to a particular habitat o Numbers of parasites are of major
within a host interest
- Coelozoic: inhabit the lumen of the intestine o Relative reproductive success
or other hollow organs (fitness) is usually descried
- Histozoic: living within tissues quantitatively
- Parasites are generally adapted to and o Useful for knowing
restricted to particular sites within or upon a ▪ Who is infected?
host ▪ Infections are distributed equally
among all age groups and both
sexes
▪ Whether certain individuals have
unusually high number of parasites

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- Abundance
o Another term sometimes used as
synonymous with density or mean
- Prevalence
o Fraction or percentage of a single host
species infected at a given time
- Incidence
o Number of new infections per unit time
divided by the number of uninfected
hosts at the beginning of the measured
time
- Aggregated populations
o A situation in which most of the
parasites occur in a relatively minority
of hosts and most host individuals are
either uninfected or lightly infected
- Population structure
o Critical piece of information
o Often described by the density,
variance, and curve of best fit
o Also includes fractions of juvenile,
mature and gravid parasites and sex
ratios
- Macroparasites
o Large parasites, do not multiply within
the host
o Occur in aggregated or clumped
populations
- Microparasites
o Small parasites that multiply within a
host
o Bacteria, rickettsia, protozoa
- Multiple species infection
o A single host individual can be infected
with a number of parasite species;
parasite community
o Parasites can interfere with one another
in various ways, especially in heavy
intestinal infections
Trophic Relationships
- Trophic levels: number of steps an organism
is from the start of the chain (from producers
to consumers)
- Parasites always live at a higher trophic
level than their hosts
o At least secondary consumers
o Live quit high on a typical food
pyramid
- Direct relationship/parasite
o Parasites that eat host tissues and fluids
- Indirect
o Parasites using homeostatic mechanism
and reproductive efforts
- All are heterotrophic
Adaptations for Transmission
- Parasite reproduction
o Oviparity: expulsion of eggs
o Viviparity
▪ Live birth
▪ More “caring” approach
o Sexual
▪ Hermaphroditism
▪ Gonochoristic individuals (only 1
sex)
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- Leucochoridium paradoxum

- Asexual reproduction: larval/sexually

immature stages
o No genetic rearrangement
o Exact genetic copy
o Polyembryony: formation of more than
one embryo in a single fertilized ovum,
seed, or zygote
o Internal budding: 2 daughter cells are
produced from 1 mother cell
o Schizogony: nucleus divides numerous - Immature acanthocephalans (spiny or thorny
times before cytokinesis headed worms)
o Binary fission: a single body divides
into 2 new bodies (common among free
living protozoans)

- Behavioral adaptation
o Increase chance of encounter with host
o Physical adaptation
- Dicrocoelium dendriticum

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Epidemiology
- Ecological aspects of a disease
- Explain
o Transmission
o Distribution
o Prevalence
o Incidence
- Shows the relationships between these
factors
- Macroepidemiology
o Disease distribution, demographic,
and cultural factors that affect
transmission, illness and death rates,
and economic impacts
- Microepidemiology
o Effect of individual host-parasite
interactions, parasite strains, host
genetic variation, immunity on the
disease distribution
- Vectors
o Vehicles by which these infections are
transmitted
- Nidus
o Set of ecological conditions under
which it can be predicted to occur
o Enables recognize landscapes where
certain diseases are expected to exist
and be effectively controlled
- Landscape epidemiology
o Connection of the disease on the
climate, animal density, climate,
geological conditions, human activities
within the nidus and ecological
conditions

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