Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Disturbance and disease: host–parasite interactions in freshwater streams remain stable following wildfire

  • Special Issue: Parasites in Aquatic Ecology
  • Published:
Oecologia Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Increases in the intensity and frequency of wildfires highlight the need to understand how fire disturbance affects ecological interactions. Though the effects of wildfire on free-living aquatic communities are relatively well-studied, how host–parasite interactions respond to fire disturbance is largely unexplored. Using a Before-After-Control-Impact design, we surveyed 10 stream sites (5 burned and 5 unburned) in the Willamette River Basin, Oregon and quantified snail host infection status and trematode parasite community structure 1 year before and two years after historic wildfires. Despite the severity of the wildfires, snail host populations did not show significant shifts in density or size distributions. We detected nine taxa of trematode parasites and overall probability of infection remained consistent over the three-year study period. However, at the taxon-specific level, we found evidence that infection probability by one trematode decreased and another increased after fire. In a larger dataset focusing on the first year after fire (9 burned, 8 unburned sites), we found evidence for subtle differences in trematode community structure, including higher Shannon diversity and evenness at the burned sites. Taken together, host–parasite interactions were remarkably stable for most taxa; for trematodes that did show responses, changes in abundance or behavior of definitive hosts may underlie observed patterns. These results have implications for using parasites as bioindicators of environmental change and suggest that aquatic snail-trematode interactions may be relatively resistant to wildfire disturbance in some ecosystems.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Data are available on DataDryad.org (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.j6q573nkd). R scripts are available on request from E. Svatos (emma.svatos@colostate.edu).

References

  • Abatzoglou JT, Williams AP (2016) Impact of anthropogenic climate change on wildfire across western US forests. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 113(42):11770–11775

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Aguirre-Macedo ML, Vidal-Martinez VM, Lafferty KD (2011) Trematode communities in snails can indicate impact and recovery from hurricanes in a tropical coastal lagoon. Int J Parasitol 41(13–14):1403–1408

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Albery GF, Turilli I, Joseph MB, Foley J, Frere CH, Bansal S (2021) From flames to inflammation: how wildfires affect patterns of wildlife disease. Fire Ecol 17(1):1–17

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Alicata JE (1932) A new trematode, Acanthatrium eptesici, from the brown bat. J Wash Acad Sci 22(10):271–274

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson NH (1992) Influence of disturbance on insect communities in Pacific Northwest streams. Hydrobiologia 248:79–92

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bixby RJ, Cooper SD, Gresswell RE, Brown LE, Dahm CN, Dwire KA (2015) Fire effects on aquatic ecosystems: an assessment of the current state of the science. Freshw Sci 34(4):1340–1350

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Black C, Gerriets JE, Fontaine JH, Harper RW, Kenyon NJ, Tablin F, Schelegle ES, Miller LA (2017) Early life wildfire smoke exposure is associated with immune dysregulation and lung function decrements in adolescence. Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol 56(5):657–666

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Blanar CA, Munkittrick KR, Houlahan J, MacLatchy DL, Marcogliese DJ (2009) Pollution and parasitism in aquatic animals: a meta-analysis of effect size. Aquat Toxicol 93(1):18–28

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Bowen L, Miles AK, Kolden CA, Saarinen JA, Bodkin JL, Murray MJ, Tinker MT (2015) Effects of wildfire on sea otter (Enhydra lutris) gene transcript profiles. Mar Mamm Sci 31(1):191–210

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Buchalski MR, Fontaine JB, Heady PA III, Hayes JP, Frick WF (2013) Bat response to differing fire severity in mixed-conifer forest California, USA. PloS One 8(3):e57884

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Byers JE, Holmes ZC, Blakeslee AM (2016) Consistency of trematode infection prevalence in host populations across large spatial and temporal scales. Ecology 97(7):1643–1649

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Clarke KR (1993) Non-parametric multivariate analyses of changes in community structure. Austral Ecol 18(1):117–143

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cooper SD, Page HM, Wiseman SW, Klose K, Bennett D, Even T, Sadro S, Nelso CE, Dudley TL (2015) Physicochemical and biological responses of streams to wildfire severity in riparian zones. Freshw Biol 60(12):2600–2619

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dahm CN, Candelaria-Ley RI, Reale CS, Reale JK, Van Horn DJ (2015) Extreme water quality degradation following a catastrophic forest fire. Freshw Biol 60(12):2584–2599

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ecke F, NematollahiMahani SA, Evander M, Hörnfeldt B, Khalil H (2019) Wildfire-induced short-term changes in a small mammal community increase prevalence of a zoonotic pathogen? Ecol Evol 9(22):12459–12470

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Esch GW, Curtis LA, Barger MA (2001) A perspective on the ecology of trematode communities in snails. Parasitology 123(7):57–75

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Falke LP, Preston DL (2021) Infection prevalence and density of a pathogenic trematode parasite decrease with stream order along a river continuum. Ecosphere 12(8):e03670

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Falke LP, Preston DL (2022) Freshwater disease hotspots: drivers of fine-scale spatial heterogeneity in trematode parasitism in streams. Freshw Biol 67(3):487–497

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Faust EC (1919) A new trematode, Acanthatrium nycteridis, nov. gen., nov. spec., from the little brown bat. T Am Microsc 38(3):209–215

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fontaine JB, Kennedy PL (2012) Meta-analysis of avian and small-mammal response to fire severity and fire surrogate treatments in US fire-prone forests. Ecol Appl 22(5):1547–1561

    PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Furnish JL (1990) Factors affecting the growth, production, and distribution of the stream snail Juga silicule. Ph. D. Dissertation, Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon

  • Galaktionov KV, Dobrovolskij A (2003). The biology and evolution of trematodes: an essay on the biology, morphology, life cycles, transmissions, and evolution of digenetic trematodes. Springer Science & Business Media, Dordrecht, Netherlands

  • Galán-Puchades MT, Fuentes MV, Cerezuela AM, Fons R, Mas-Coma S (1998) Host/parasite postfire responses: the helminths of Apodemus sylvaticus (Rodentia, Muridae) as bioindicators of its movements after fire. Misc Zool 21(2):35–43

  • Gallagher MR, Kreye JK, Machtinger ET, Everland A, Schmidt N, Skowronski NS (2022) Can restoration of fire-dependent ecosystems reduce ticks and tick-borne disease prevalence in the eastern United States? Ecol Appl 32(7):e2637

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gresswell RE (1999) Fire and aquatic ecosystems in forested biomes of North America. Trans Am Fish 128(2):193–221

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hartig F (2022) DHARMa: Residual Diagnostics for Hierarchical (Multi-Level/Mixed) Regression Models. R package version 0.4.6.

  • Hechinger RF, Lafferty KD (2005) Host diversity begets parasite diversity: bird final hosts and trematodes in snail intermediate hosts. Proc Royal Soc B 272(1567):1059–1066

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Higuera PE, Abatzoglou JT (2021) Record-setting climate enabled the extraordinary 2020 fire season in the western United States. Glob Chang Bio 27(1):1

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hossack BR, Lowe WH, Honeycutt RK, Parks SA, Corn PS (2013a) Interactive effects of wildfire, forest management, and isolation on amphibian and parasite abundance. Ecol Appl 23(2):479–492

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hossack BR, Lowe WH, Ware JL, Corn PS (2013b) Disease in a dynamic landscape: host behavior and wildfire reduce amphibian chytrid infection. Biol Conserv 157:293–299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hudson PJ, Dobson AP, Lafferty KD (2006) Is a healthy ecosystem one that is rich in parasites? Trends Ecol Evol 21(7):381–385

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Huspeni TC, Lafferty KD (2004) Using larval trematodes that parasitize snails to evaluate a saltmarsh restoration project. Ecol Appl 14(3):795–804

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ice GG, Neary DG, Adams PW (2004) Effects of wildfire on soils and watershed processes. J for 102(6):16–20

    Google Scholar 

  • Izumi M (1935) Studies concerning a New Species of Metagonimus and its Life Cycle. Kitasato Arch Exp Med 12(4):362–384

  • Johnson PT, Wood CL, Joseph MB, Preston DL, Haas SE, Springer YP (2016) Habitat heterogeneity drives the host-diversity-begets-parasite-diversity relationship: evidence from experimental and field studies. Ecol Lett 19(7):752–761

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Kaiser SW, Greenlees MJ, Shine R (2021) Wildfires modify the parasite loads of invasive cane toads. Biol Lett 17(12):20210470

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Kamiya T, O’Dwyer K, Nakagawa S, Poulin R (2014) Host diversity drives parasite diversity: meta-analytical insights into patterns and causal mechanisms. Ecography 37(7):689–697

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Klose K, Cooper SD, Bennett D (2015) Effects of wildfire on stream algal abundance, community structure, and nutrient limitation. Freshw Sci 34(4):1494–1509

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Knight RA, Pratt I (1955) The life-histories of Allassogonoporus vespertilionis Macy and Acanthatrium oregonense Macy (Trematoda:Lecithodendriidae). J Parasitol 41(3):248–255

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kruskal JB (1964) Nonmetric multidimensional scaling: a numerical method. Pschometrika 29:115–129

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Lafferty KD (2012) Biodiversity loss decreases parasite diversity: theory and patterns. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 367(1604):2814–2827

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Lui Y, Stanturf J, Goodrick S (2010) Trends in global wildfire potential in a changing climate. For Ecol Manag 259:685–697

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marcogliese DJ (2004) Parasites: small players with crucial roles in the ecological theater. EcoHealth 1(2):151–164

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marcogliese DJ (2005) Parasites of the superorganism: are they indicators of ecosystem health? Int J Parasitol 35(7):705–716

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • May-Tec AL, Herrera-Castillo NA, Vidal-Martínez VM, Aguirre-Macedo ML (2020) Following the infection dynamics of the tropical trematode Oligogonotylus mayae in its intermediate and definitive hosts for 13 years. J Helmintol 94:e208

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Mellon CD, Wipfli MS, Li JL (2008) Effects of forest fire on headwater stream macroinvertebrate communities in eastern Washington, USA. Freshw Biol 53(11):2331–2343

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ménard L, Scott ME (1987) Hatching and survival characteristics of Cyathocotyle bushiensis Khan 1962 (Digenea) eggs and miracidia. Parasitol 95(2):355–362

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Minchella DJ, Leathers BK, Brown KM, McNair JN (1985) Host and parasite counteradaptations: an example from a freshwater snail. Am Nat 126(6):843–854

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Minshall GW (2003) Responses of stream benthic macroinvertebrates to fire. For Ecol Manag 178(1–2):155–161

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Minshall GW, Robinson CT, Lawrence DE (1997) Postfire responses of lotic ecosystems in Yellowstone National Park, USA. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 54(11):2509–2525

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity Direct Download: Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity assessment of Event ID—or4482112218820200816. (2021, August—last revised). MTBS Project (USDA Forest Service/U.S. Geological Survey). Available online: http://mtbs.gov/direct-download [2022, September 28]

  • Moore CS, Gittman RK, Puckett BJ, Wellman EH, Blakeslee AMH (2020) If you build it, they will come: restoration positively influences free-living and parasite diversity in a restored tidal marsh. Food Webs 25:e00167

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Munro NT, Kovac KJ, Niejalke D, Cunningham RB (2009) The effect of a single burn event on the aquatic invertebrates in artesian springs. Austral Ecol 34(8):837–847

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Musetta-Lambert J, Kreutzweiser D, Sibley P (2019) Influence of wildfire and harvesting on aquatic and terrestrial invertebrate drift patterns in boreal headwater streams. Hydrobiologia 834(1):27–45

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oksanen J, Blanchet FG, Kindt R, Legendre P, Minchin PR, Ohara RB, Simpson GL, Solymos P, Stevens MH, Wagner H, Oksanen MJ (2013) Package ‘vegan.’ Commun Ecol Package, Version 2(9):1–295

    Google Scholar 

  • Oliver AA, Bogan MT, Herbst DB, Dahlgren RA (2012) Short-term changes in-stream macroinvertebrate communities following a severe fire in the Lake Tahoe basin, California. Hydrobiologia 694:117–130

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Oregon Department of Forestry (2022) ODF Fire History 1991–2022. Web. https://www.oregon.gov/odf/fire/documents/odf-century-fire-history-chart.pdf

  • Ortega N (2018) Flames and frogs—the impact of environmental disturbances on host-parasite dynamics. PhD Dissertation, Department of Biology, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, USA

  • Pettit NE, Naiman RJ (2007) Fire in the riparian zone: characteristics and ecological consequences. Ecosyst 10(5):673–687

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pielou EC (1966) The measurement of diversity in different types of biological collections. J Theor Biol 13:131–144

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Pietrock M, Marcogliese DJ (2003) Free-living endohelminth stages: at the mercy of environmental conditions. Trends Parasitol 19(7):293–299

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Poulin R (2011) Origins of parasitism and complex life-cycles. Evolutionary ecology of parasites, 2nd edn. Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 8–40

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Pratt I, McCauley JE (1961) Trematodes of the Pacific Northwest: an annotated catalog. Oregon State University Press, Corvallis

    Google Scholar 

  • Preston DL, Layden TJ, Segui LM, Falke LP, Brant SV, Novak M (2021) Trematode parasites exceed aquatic insect biomass in Oregon stream food webs. J Anim Ecol 90(3):766–775

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • R Core Team (2021). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria

  • Reilly MJ, Zuspan A, Halofsky JS, Raymond C, McEvoy A, Dye AW, Donato DC, Kim JB, Potter BE, Walker N, Davis RJ (2022) Cascadia burning: the historic, but not historically unprecedented, 2020 wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, USA. Ecosphere 13(6):e4070

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberger AE, Dunham JB, Neuswanger JR, Railsback SF (2015) Legacy effects of wildfire on stream thermal regimes and rainbow trout ecology: an integrated analysis of observation and individual-based models. Freshw Sci 34(4):1571–1584

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sanders AM, Coble AA, Swartz AG, River M, James P, Warren DR (2022) Heat and smoke from wildfires influence water temperature and dissolved oxygen levels in headwater streams. Freshw Sci 41(4):665–679

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saxe S, Hogue TS, Hay L (2018) Characterization and evaluation of controls on post-fire streamflow response across western US watersheds. Hydrol Earth Syst Eci 22(2):1221–1237

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Scasta JD (2015) Fire and parasites: an under-recognized form of anthropogenic land use change and mechanism of disease exposure. EcoHealth 12(3):398–403

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Shannon CE (1948) A mathematical theory of communication. Bell Syst Tech J 27:379–423

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Sherson LR, Van Horn DJ, Gomez-Velez JD, Crossey LJ, Dahm CN (2015) Nutrient dynamics in an alpine headwater stream: use of continuous water quality sensors to examine responses to wildfire and precipitation events. Hydrol Process 29(14):3193–3207

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  • Silins U, Bladon KD, Kelly EN, Esch E, Spence JR, Stone M, Emelko MB, Boon S, Wagner MJ, Williams CH, Tichkowsky I (2014) Five-year legacy of wildfire and salvage logging impacts on nutrient runoff and aquatic plant, invertebrate, and fish productivity. Ecohydrol 7(6):1508–1523

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Steenvoorden J, Meddens AJ, Martinez AJ, Foster LJ, Kissling WD (2019) The potential importance of unburned islands as refugia for the persistence of wildlife species in fire-prone ecosystems. Ecol Evol 9(15):8800–8812

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Sures B, Nachev M, Selbach C, Marcogliese DJ (2017) Parasite responses to pollution: what we know and where we go in ‘environmental parasitology.’ Parasit Vectors 10:1–19

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Swartz A, Warren DR (2022) Wildfire in western Oregon increases stream temperatures, benthic biofilms and juvenile coastal cutthroat trout size and densities with mixed effects on adult trout and coastal giant salamanders. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 80(3):503–516

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Valtonen ET, Holmes JC, Koskivaara M (1997) Eutrophication, pollution and fragmentation: effects on parasite communities in roach (Rutilus rutilus) and perch (Perca fluviatilis) in four lakes in central Finland. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 54(3):572–585

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vaz PG, Merten EC, Warren DR, Durscher K, Tapp M, Robinson CT, Rego FC, Pinto P (2015) Fire meets inland water via burned wood: and then what? Freshw Sci 34(4):1468–1481

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vidal-Martinzed VM, Pech D, Sures B, Purucker T, Poulin R (2010) Can parasites really reveal environmental impact? Trends Parasitol 26(1):44–51

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Westerling AL, Hidalgo HG, Cayan DR, Swetnam TW (2006) Warming and earlier spring increase western U.S. forest wildfire activity. Science 313(5789):940–943

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank Colorado State University’s Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, and Graduate Degree Program in Ecology for providing funding and support for this research. We also thank the Oregon Department of Forestry and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildfire for granting us permits to access our survey sites and collect invertebrate specimens (Permits #314.24384; #26611). We would like to thank F. Carvallo, J. Trujillo, and the Preston Lab for their assistance with manuscript preparation.

Funding

This research was supported by Colorado State University.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA

    Emma C. Svatos, Landon P. Falke & Daniel L. Preston

  2. Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA

    Emma C. Svatos, Landon P. Falke & Daniel L. Preston

Authors
  1. Emma C. Svatos
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Landon P. Falke
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Daniel L. Preston
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

All authors contributed to conceiving and designing the study. ECS and LPF performed data collection. ECS primarily analyzed the data with contributions from LPF. All authors contributed to writing the manuscript with ECS as lead writer.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Emma C. Svatos.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval

Not applicable.

Consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

All authors provide consent for publication.

Additional information

Communicated by Tara Merrill and Jason Hoverman .

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary file1 (PDF 516 KB)

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Svatos, E.C., Falke, L.P. & Preston, D.L. Disturbance and disease: host–parasite interactions in freshwater streams remain stable following wildfire. Oecologia 204, 401–411 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-023-05422-w

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-023-05422-w

Keywords

Search

Navigation