Climate Change Is Good for These Crabs’ Genitals

Hakai Magazine ^ | January 18, 2018 | by Amorina Kingdon

[Oldeconomybuyer]

We always knew there would be winners and losers.

The depressed mud crab is dealing with a lot right now. There’s climate change, pollution, and a real downer of a name. (Its scientific name, Eurypanopeus depressus, is no more cheery). But its greatest burden is probably the genital parasites. Yes, there’s a particular barnacle that latches onto depressed crab crotches, takes over the machinery therein, and co-opts it for its own reproduction. (And you thought herpes was bad.)

But relief may be coming. Ocean ecologist Alyssa-Lois Gehman at the University of British Columbia has modeled how this host-parasite relationship will change as the ocean warms and discovered that the barnacle, Loxothylacus panopaei, will probably become extinct in the depressed mud crab population with just 2 °C of warming.

This may be good news for the crabs. But in another, more far-reaching way, the discovery is bad news. Most researchers don’t consider the shifts that may be coming for host-parasite interactions when they’re modeling how ecosystems will cope with climate change. And that’s an oversight in conservation and adaptation planning because parasites are everywhere.

“Most of the organisms on Earth have parasites,” Gehman says. “Including these interactions makes projections way more accurate.”

Gehman says that under today’s environmental conditions, both infected and uninfected depressed mud crabs spend their days scuttling around coastal oyster beds, so it seemed likely they would continue to do so as the seas warm. But when Gehman designed a new projection that included how the two species would interact, she got a very different forecast.

The updated model showed that if the average water temperature rises by just 2 °C—which is expected by 2100—the parasite will vanish from the crab population.

[SunkenCiv]

Jangled Menitals?

[TruthWillWin]

“junk”? I hate it when some uses the word junk to describe the male genitals!