Abstract:

Parasites may also directly become prey during their free-living life cycle stages. Most parasites include free-living stages to get from one host to the next. In this free-living stage, parasites are extremely vulnerable to predation by non-host predators. Another type of direct predation on parasites involves parasites that attach themselves to the outside of their hosts (ectoparasites). Ectoparasites may also be vulnerable and can be consumed by other animals. Finally, parasites can also serve as prey or host resources for other parasites. In the following, we explain the different cases where parasites become prey and discuss the ecological effects of predation on parasites for the parasites, their hosts and the predators. Finally, when parasites act as prey they may contribute to the non-host predator does diet, in some cases constitute a significant proportion of energy intake. However, not all predators of infected organisms are suitable downstream hosts and parasites may thus be ‘accidentally’ and indirectly consumed by predators and, therefore, not result in successful transmission

Description:

Predators, Wildlife Infections, Ectoparasites, non-host predator