Does terrestrial epidemiology apply to marine systems

By Hamish McCallum, A. Kuris, C. Harvell, K. Lafferty, Garriett W Smith, J. Porter. 2004

175 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Most of epidemiological theory has been developed for terrestrial systems, but the significance of disease in the ocean is now being recognized. However, the extent to which terrestrial epidemiology can be directly transferred to marine systems is uncertain. Many broad types of disease-causing organism occur both on land and in the sea, and it is clear that some emergent disease problems in marine environments are caused by pathogens moving from terrestrial to marine systems. However, marine systems are qualitatively different from terrestrial environments, and these differences affect the application of modelling and management approaches that have been developed for terrestrial systems. Phyla and body plans are more diverse in marine environments and marine organisms have different life histories and probably different disease transmission modes than many of their terrestrial counterparts. Marine populations are typically more open than terrestrial ones, with the potential for long-distance dispersal of larvae. Potentially, this might enable unusually rapid propagation of epidemics in marine systems, and there are several examples of this. Taken together, these differences will require the development of new approaches to modelling and control of infectious disease in the ocean.

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Citations in the corpus

• Eukaryotic plankton diversity in the sunlit ocean (2015, background): “This pattern contrasts with terrestrial systems wheremost parasites live within their hosts and are typically transmitted either vertically or through vectors because they generally do not survive outside their hosts (52).”
• Factors Affecting Susceptibility of the Coral Montastraea faveolata to Black-Band Disease. (2006, background): “Transmission of pathogens by vectors is common in the terrestrial environment (Aeschlimann 1991, McCallum et al. 2004), and has recently been documented in the marine environment.”
• Host density thresholds and disease control for fisheries and aquaculture (2010, background): “In the oceans, host density is also increased by the aggregated nature of marine populations, which may increase disease outbreak and spread relative to terrestrial systems (McCallum et al. 2003, 2004).”
• Mass mortalities of Pacific oysters Crassostrea gigas reflect infectious diseases and vary with farming practices in the Mediterranean Thau lagoon, France (2012, background): “Characteristics of the aquaculture environment, such as hydrodynamic connectivity, mixing of waters and close proximity, exacerbate disease epidemics (McCallum et al. 2004, Gustafson et al. 2007, Viljugrein et al. 2009, Salama & Murray 2011).”
• Scuba diving damage and intensity of tourist activities increases coral disease prevalence (2014, background): “Because pollutants cannot be isolated in open marine systems and may have implications beyond local coral assemblages (McCallum et al., 2004), the possibility of disease dispersing from sites with higher levels of environmental stress is concerning.”
• The ecology and emergence of diseases in fresh waters (2011, background): “…disease emergence in freshwater habitats less pronounced than in marine or terrestrial ecosystems, for example owing to differences in ecology, evolution or anthropogenic influences, or does this trend result instead from a lack of information or synthesis (McCallum et al., 2004; Winfield, 2009)?”
• Breeding for disease resistance of Penaeid shrimps (2009, background): “McCallum et al. (2004) have pointed out that, although the same basic principles apply to the epidemiology of both terrestrial and marine species, there are major qualitative differences and these affect the management practices for their control.”