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Título: Impact of habitat loss on the diversity and structure of ecological networks between oxyurid nematodes and spur-thighed tortoises (Testudo graeca L.)
Fecha de publicación: 2019
Editorial: PeerJ
Cita bibliográfica: PeerJ – the Journal of Life & Environmental Sciences (2019)
ISSN: Electronic: 2167-8359
Palabras clave: Antagonism
Biotic interactions
Commensalism
Habitat degradation
Mutualism
Parasitism
Resumen: Habitat loss and fragmentation are recognized as affecting the nature of biotic interactions, although we still know little about such changes for reptilian herbivores and their hindgut nematodes, in which endosymbiont interactions could range from mutualistic to commensal and parasitic. We investigated the potential cost and benefit of endosymbiont interactions between the spur-thighed tortoise (Testudo graeca L.) and adult oxyurid nematodes (Pharyngodonidae order Oxyurida) in scrublands of southern Spain. For this, we assessed the association between richness and abundance of oxyurid species with tortoises’ growth rates and body traits (weight and carapace length) across levels of habitat loss (low, intermediate and high). Furthermore, by using an intrapopulation ecological network approach, we evaluated the structure and diversity of tortoise–oxyurid interactions by focusing on oxyurid species infesting individual tortoises with different body traits and growth rates across habitats. Overall, tortoise body traits were not related to oxyurid infestation across habitats. Oxyurid richness and abundance however, showed contrasting relationships with growth rates across levels of habitat loss. At low habitat loss, oxyurid infestation was positively associated with growth rates (suggesting a mutualistic oxyurid–tortoise relationship), but the association became negative at high habitat loss (suggesting a parasitic relationship). Furthermore, no relationship was observed when habitat loss was intermediate (suggesting a commensal relationship). The network analysis showed that the oxyurid community was not randomly assembled but significantly nested, revealing a structured pattern for all levels of habitat loss. The diversity of interactions was lowest at low habitat loss. The intermediate level, however, showed the greatest specialization, which indicates that individuals were infested by fewer oxyurids in this landscape, whereas at high habitat loss individuals were the most generalized hosts. Related to the latter, connectance was greatest at high habitat loss, reflecting a more uniform spread of interactions among oxyurid species. At an individual level, heavier and larger tortoises tended to show a greater number of oxyurid species interactions. We conclude that there is an association between habitat loss and the tortoise–oxyurid interaction. Although we cannot infer causality in their association, we hypothesize that such oxyurids could have negative, neutral and positive consequences for tortoise growth rates. Ecological network analysis can help in the understanding of the nature of such changes in tortoise–oxyurid interactions by showing how generalized or specialized such interactions are under different environmental conditions and how vulnerable endosymbiont interactions might be to further habitat loss.
Autor/es principal/es: Benítez-Malvido, Julieta
Giménez Casalduero, Andrés
Graciá, Eva
Rodríguez-Caro, Roberto Carlos
Ruiz de Ybáñez Carnero, María del Rocío
Siliceo-Cantero, Héctor Hugo
Traveset, Anna
Facultad/Departamentos/Servicios: Facultades, Departamentos, Servicios y Escuelas::Departamentos de la UMU::Facultad de Veterinaria
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10201/138525
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8076
Tipo de documento: info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Número páginas / Extensión: 46
Derechos: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Descripción: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
©2019. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This document is the Accepted, version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in PeerJ – the Journal of Life & Environmental Sciences. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8076
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