title: The butterfly effect: parasite diversity, environment, and emerging disease in aquatic wildlife.
abstract: Aquatic wildlife is increasingly subjected to emerging diseases often due to perturbations of the existing dynamic balance between hosts and their parasites. Accelerating changes in environmental factors, together with anthropogenic translocation of hosts and parasites, act synergistically to produce hard-to-predict disease outcomes in freshwater and marine systems. These outcomes are further complicated by the intimate links between diseases in wildlife and diseases in humans and domestic animals. Here, we explore the interactions of parasites in aquatic wildlife in terms of their biodiversity, their response to environmental change, their emerging diseases, and the contribution of humans and domestic animals to parasitic disease outcomes. This work highlights the clear need for interdisciplinary approaches to ameliorate disease impacts in aquatic wildlife systems.
authors.affiliation: Natural Environments Program, Queensland Museum, South Brisbane, QLD 4101, Australia. Electronic address: robert.adlard@qm.qld.gov.au.
authors.forename: Robert D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Adlard
authors.affiliation: School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Cairns, QLD 4870, Australia.
authors.forename: Terrence L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Unit for Environmental Sciences and Management, North-West University, Potchefstroom 2520, South Africa.
authors.forename: Nico J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Smit
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000835:Animals, Wild / Q000469:parasitology*; D059001:Aquatic Organisms / Q000469:parasitology*; D044822:Biodiversity; D021821:Communicable Diseases, Emerging / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000469:parasitology*; D004777:Environment; D006801:Humans; D010273:Parasitic Diseases, Animal / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000469:parasitology*
keywords: aquatic parasites; biodiversity; emerging disease; environment; wildlife