• editor.aipublications@gmail.com
  • Track Your Paper
  • Contact Us
  • ISSN: 2456-8791

International Journal Of Forest, Animal And Fisheries Research(IJFAF)

Evolutionary Adaptation of Parasites to Anthropogenic Stressors Including Pollution, Habitat Alteration, and Climate Shifts

Sristi Biswas

Article Info: Received: 19 Sep 2023; Received in revised form: 15 Oct 2023; Accepted: 20 Oct 2023; Available online: 26 Oct 2023

Download | Downloads : 3 | Total View : 23

DOI: 10.22161/ijfaf.7.5.8

Journal : International Journal Of Forest, Animal And Fisheries Research(IJFAF)

Share

Parasites are increasingly recognized as dynamic evolutionary agents rather than passive indicators of environmental degradation. This review synthesizes current evidence for evolutionary adaptation of parasitic taxa to three dominant anthropogenic stressors chemical pollution, habitat alteration, and climate shifts and critically examines how such adaptation modulates their utility as bioindicators. Evidence from field surveys, experimental evolution, and population genomics demonstrates that acanthocephalans and trematodes can evolve metal tolerance within tens of generations, arthropod parasites develop target-site resistance to pesticides with measurable fitness costs, and trematode populations harbor significant genotypic variation in thermal optima that enables selection under warming regimes. Habitat fragmentation consistently favors generalist over specialist parasite lineages, driving biotic homogenization with implications for disease emergence risk. However, the capacity for adaptation is highly heterogeneous across taxa and contexts, constrained by generation time, effective population size, and standing genetic variation. Critically, evolutionary adaptation can decouple parasite responses from current environmental conditions, potentially compromising their sensitivity as early-warning indicators if not explicitly accounted for. The review concludes that parasites retain substantial bioindicator value, but only within an evolutionary-aware framework that incorporates local adaptation, population genetic structure, and the quantification of trade-offs. Future priorities include long-term multigenerational experiments, comparative genomics along environmental gradients, and the development of adaptive bioindicator indices that integrate evolutionary trajectories rather than static prevalence metrics.

Evolutionary adaptation; Anthropogenic stressors; Parasite bioindicators; Pollution tolerance; Habitat fragmentation; Climate change

[1] Crutzen, P. J. (2002). Geology of mankind. Nature, 415(6867), 23.
[2] Steffen, W., Crutzen, P. J., & McNeill, J. R. (2007). The Anthropocene: Are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature? Ambio, 36(8), 614–621.
[3] Dobson, A., Lafferty, K. D., Kuris, A. M., Hechinger, R. F., & Jetz, W. (2008). Homage to Linnaeus: How many parasites? How many hosts? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(Supplement 1), 11482–11489.
[4] Hudson, P. J., Dobson, A. P., & Lafferty, K. D. (2006). Is a healthy ecosystem one that is rich in parasites? Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 21(7), 381–385.
[5] Sures, B. (2004). Environmental parasitology: Relevancy of parasites in monitoring environmental pollution. Trends in Parasitology, 20(4), 170–177.
[6] Lafferty, K. D. (1997). Environmental parasitology: What can parasites tell us about human impacts on the environment? Parasitology Today, 13(7), 251–255.
[7] Poulin, R. (2007). Evolutionary ecology of parasites (2nd ed.). Princeton University Press.
[8] Ranson, H., & Lissenden, N. (2016). Insecticide resistance in African Anopheles mosquitoes: A worsening situation that needs urgent action to maintain malaria control. Trends in Parasitology, 32(3), 187–196.
[9] Ffrench-Constant, R. H. (2013). The molecular genetics of insecticide resistance. Genetics, 194(4), 807–815.
[10] Sures, B., Nachev, M., Selbach, C., & Marcogliese, D. J. (2017). Parasite responses to pollution: What we know and where we go in ‘environmental parasitology’. Parasites & Vectors, 10(1), 65.
[11] Thieltges, D. W., Fredensborg, B. L., & Poulin, R. (2008). Climate change and the potential for range expansion of the trematode Maritrema novaezealandensis. Marine Biology, 153(5), 993–1001.
[12] Dharmarajan, G., Walker, R. S., & Latch, E. K. (2021). Anthropogenic disturbance favours generalist over specialist parasites in bird communities: Implications for risk of disease emergence. Ecology Letters, 24(9), 1876–1886.
[13] Marcogliese, D. J. (2005). Parasites of the superorganism: Are they indicators of ecosystem health? International Journal for Parasitology, 35(7), 705–716.
[14] Sures, B., & Reimann, N. (2003). Analysis of trace metals in the Antarctic host-parasite system Notothenia coriiceps and Aspersentis megarhynchus (Acanthocephala) caught at King George Island. Polar Biology, 26(10), 680–686.
[15] Sures, B., Thielen, F., Baska, F., Messerschmidt, J., & von Bohlen, A. (2005). The intestinal parasite Pomphorhynchus laevis (Acanthocephala) from barbel as a bioindicator for metal pollution in the Danube River near Budapest, Hungary. Environmental Pollution, 137(2), 291–299.
[16] Sures, B., & Knopf, K. (2004). Individual and combined effects of cadmium and 3,3',4,4',5-pentachlorobiphenyl (PCB 126) on the humoral immune response in European eel (Anguilla anguilla) experimentally infected with larvae of Anguillicola crassus. Parasitology, 128(4), 445–454.
[17] Borković-Mitić, S. S., Kovačević, S., Vranković, J., Radovanović, T., Perendija, B., & Despotović, S. (2021). First findings on metal-binding proteins in Acanthocephala from the transcriptome of Dentitruncus truttae. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part C: Toxicology & Pharmacology, 248, 109107.
[18] Coors, A., & De Meester, L. (2011). Fitness and virulence of a bacterial endoparasite in an environmentally stressed crustacean host. Parasitology, 138(1), 122–131.
[19] Gandon, S., & Michalakis, Y. (2002). Local adaptation, evolutionary potential and host–parasite coevolution: Interactions between migration, mutation, population size and generation time. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 15(3), 451–462.
[20] Jabeen, F., & Chaudhry, A. S. (2021). Helminth parasites as bioindicators of heavy metal pollution in the Jhelum River: Insights into bioaccumulation and ecological implications. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 193(8), 512.
[21] Dia, I., Diop, F., Ndiaye, M., Konaté, L., Faye, O., & Diallo, D. (2021). Evolution of the pyrethroids target-site resistance mechanisms in Senegal: Early stage of the Vgsc-1014F and Vgsc-1014S allelic frequencies shift. Genes, 12(12), 1948.
[22] Mulatier, M., Pennetier, C., Porciani, A., Chandre, F., & Damiens, D. (2021). Insecticide resistance exerts significant fitness costs in immature stages of Anopheles gambiae in western Kenya. Malaria Journal, 20(1), 259.
[23] Rohr, J. R., Schotthoefer, A. M., Raffel, T. R., Carrick, H. J., Halstead, N., Hoverman, J. T., Johnson, C. M., Johnson, L. B., Lieske, C., Piwoni, M. D., Schoff, P. K., & Beasley, V. R. (2008). Agrochemicals increase trematode infections in a declining amphibian species. Nature, 455(7217), 1235–1239.
[24] Hua, J., & Relyea, R. A. (2014). Chemical cocktails in aquatic systems: Pesticide effects on the response and recovery of >20 animal taxa. Environmental Pollution, 189, 18–26.
[25] Morley, N. J. (2010). Environmental effects on the transmission of digenean parasites: A review. Parasitology, 137(7), 1005–1030.
[26] Jansen, M., Stoks, R., Coors, A., van Doorslaer, W., & De Meester, L. (2011). Collateral damage: Rapid exposure-induced evolution of pesticide resistance leads to increased susceptibility to parasites. Evolution, 65(9), 2681–2691.
[27] Alout, H., Yameogo, B., Djogbenou, L. S., Chandre, F., Dabiré, R. K., Corbel, V., & Cohuet, A. (2018). Parasitism increases and decreases the costs of insecticide resistance in mosquitoes. Evolution, 72(8), 1661–1670.
[28] Van Leeuwen, T., Tirry, L., Yamamoto, A., Nauen, R., & Dermauw, W. (2021). Susceptibility to acaricides and the frequencies of point mutations in etoxazole- and pyridaben-resistant strains and field populations of the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae (Acari: Tetranychidae). Insects, 12(7), 640.
[29] Vatandoost, H., & Pourmohammadi, B. (2021). High levels of pyrethroid resistance and super-kdr mutations in the populations of tropical bed bug, Cimex hemipterus, in Iran. Parasites & Vectors, 14(1), 479.
[30] Buss, N., Sander, B., & Hua, J. (2022). Effects of polyester microplastic fiber contamination on amphibian–trematode interactions. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 41(4), 869–879.
[31] Kolenda, K., Kuśmierek, N., & Pstrowska, K. (2021). Microplastics increase susceptibility of amphibian larvae to the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 22438.
[32] Pennino, M. G., Bachiller, E., Lloret-Lloret, E., Albo-Puigserver, M., Esteban, A., & Bellido, J. M. (2020). Ingestion of microplastics and occurrence of parasite association in Mediterranean anchovy and sardine. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 158, 111399.
[33] Fueser, H., Mueller, M. T., Weiss, L., Hoss, S., & Traunspurger, W. (2021). Exposure to nanoplastics affects the outcome of infectious disease in phytoplankton. Environmental Pollution, 279, 116896.
[34] Seeley, M. E., Song, B., Passie, R., & Hale, R. C. (2021). Microplastics accumulate fungal pathogens in terrestrial ecosystems. Scientific Reports, 11(1), 14554.
[35] Dharmarajan, G. (2021). Habitat fragmentation and host-parasite interactions. Doctoral dissertation, Université de Bourgogne.
[36] Altizer, S., Ostfeld, R. S., Johnson, P. T. J., Kutz, S., & Harvell, C. D. (2013). Climate change and infectious diseases: From evidence to a predictive framework. Science, 341(6145), 514–519.
[37] Brooks, D. R., & Hoberg, E. P. (2007). How will global climate change affect parasite–host assemblages? Trends in Parasitology, 23(12), 571–574.
[38] Sehgal, R. N. M. (2015). Manifold habitat effects on the prevalence and diversity of avian blood parasites. International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife, 4(3), 421–430.
[39] Gandon, S., & Nuismer, S. L. (2009). Interactions between genetic drift, gene flow, and selection mosaics drive parasite local adaptation. The American Naturalist, 173(2), 212–224.
[40] Bellis, E. S., McLaughlin, C. M., dePamphilis, C. W., & Lasky, J. R. (2021). The geography of parasite local adaptation to host communities. Ecography, 44(8), 1205–1217.
[41] Fecchio, A., Bell, J. A., Bosholn, M., Vaughan, J. A., Tkach, V. V., Lutz, H. L., Cueto, V. R., Gorosito, C. A., & Weckstein, J. D. (2021). Loss of forest cover and host functional diversity increases prevalence of avian malaria parasites in the Atlantic Forest. International Journal for Parasitology, 51(9), 719–728.
[42] de Araújo, G. J., Storck-Tonon, D., Dáttilo, W., & Izzo, T. J. (2021). Is being green what matters? Functional diversity of cavity-nesting bees and wasps and their interaction networks with parasites in different reforestation types in Amazonia. Science of the Total Environment, 772, 144982.
[43] Sehgal, R. N. M. (2010). Deforestation and avian infectious diseases. Journal of Experimental Biology, 213(6), 955–960.
[44] Mazé-Guilmo, E., Blanchet, S., McCoy, K. D., & Loot, G. (2016). Local adaptation of a parasite to its host along a geographical gradient: A test of the parasite specialization hypothesis. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 29(8), 1549–1562.
[45] Ebert, D. (2008). Host–parasite coevolution: Insights from the Daphnia–parasite model system. Current Opinion in Microbiology, 11(3), 290–301.
[46] Bradley, C. A., & Altizer, S. (2007). Urbanization and the ecology of wildlife diseases. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 22(2), 95–102.
[47] Martin, L. B., Boruta, M., & Zuk, M. (2010). Do birds select their parasites? The role of host behavior in parasite transmission. Integrative and Comparative Biology, 50(3), 371–379.
[48] Turner, W. C., Kamath, P. L., van Heerden, H., Huang, Y. H., Barandongo, Z. R., Bruce, S. A., & Kausrud, K. (2021). The roles of environmental variation and parasite survival in virulence–transmission relationships. Royal Society Open Science, 8(6), 210088.
[49] Aslan, I. H., Pourtois, J. D., Tildesley, M. J., & Mordecai, E. A. (2021). Interventions can shift the thermal optimum for parasitic disease transmission. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(11), e2017537118.
[50] Hoffmann, A. A., & Sgrò, C. M. (2011). Climate change and evolutionary adaptation. Nature, 470(7335), 479–485.
[51] Studer, A., Thieltges, D. W., & Poulin, R. (2014). Variation among genotypes in responses to increasing temperature in a marine parasite: Evolutionary potential in the face of global warming? International Journal for Parasitology, 44(12), 919–924.
[52] Studer, A., & Poulin, R. (2014). Analysis of trait mean and variability versus temperature in trematode cercariae: Is there scope for adaptation to global warming? International Journal for Parasitology, 44(6), 403–410.
[53] Parmesan, C. (2006). Ecological and evolutionary responses to recent climate change. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 37, 637–669.
[54] Le Lann, C., Van Baaren, J., & Visser, B. (2021). Dealing with predictable and unpredictable temperatures in a climate change context: The case of parasitoids and their hosts. Current Opinion in Insect Science, 47, 113–120.
[55] Miller, K. E., & Polaszek, A. (2021). Community context modifies response of host-parasitoid interactions to phenological mismatch under warming. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 288(1950), 20210487.
[56] Kutz, S. J., Hoberg, E. P., Polley, L., & Jenkins, E. J. (2005). Global warming is changing the dynamics of Arctic host–parasite systems. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 272(1571), 2571–2576.
[57] van Dijk, J., & Morgan, E. R. (2011). The influence of temperature on the development, hatching and survival of Nematodirus battus larvae. Parasitology, 138(8), 1039–1050.
[58] Nachev, M., & Sures, B. (2016). Environmental parasitology: Parasites as accumulation bioindicators in the marine environment. Journal of Sea Research, 113, 45–50.