Developmental stage of parasites influences the structure of fish-parasite networks.

ABSTRACT: Specialized interactions tend to be more common in systems that require strong reciprocal adaptation between species, such as those observed between parasites and hosts. Parasites exhibit a high diversity of species and life history strategies, presenting host specificity which increases the complexity of these antagonistic systems. However, most studies are limited to the description of interactions between a few parasite and host species, which restricts our understanding of these systems as a whole. We investigated the effect of the developmental stage of the parasite on the structure of 30 metazoan fish-parasite networks, with an emphasis on the specificity of the interactions, connectance and modularity. We assessed the functional role of each species in modular networks and its inter

SUBMITTER: Bellay S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3790841 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature