2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference
March 13 - 15, 2022
6/08/2017 | 9:45 AM - 10:00 AM | PINCHY PATCHES: EXPLORING THE ASSEMBLY OF SYMBIOTIC METACOMMUNITIES | 305A
PINCHY PATCHES: EXPLORING THE ASSEMBLY OF SYMBIOTIC METACOMMUNITIES
Crayfish and their ectosymbiotic annelid worms (Order: Branchiobdellida) engage in a density-dependent cleaning symbiosis that shifts between mutualism and parasitism. This shift provides us with an effective tool to study the nature of symbiosis. Our current work utilizes metacommunity theory, which describes the interactions between spatially disparate communities of organisms, to model and predict these symbiotic interactions. A metacommunity is a community of communities, groups of interacting organisms that affect each other through dispersal. Traditionally, this framework has been used to study communities along connected environmental patches. However, if we consider a host crayfish to be a patch, we can use this framework to study how host controls and symbiont interactions with the host and each other affect the structure of the symbiont communities on each crayfish. Data from a field survey at Sinking Creek in Newport, VA have provided us with insights on how the worm communities develop after a disturbance event (such as the crayfish molting), as well as information on the worm communities on crayfish of different sizes, and how they change throughout the year.
- C11 Community Ecology
- C03 Invertebrates
- S12 Challenges, insights, and opportunities in crayfish conservation and ecology
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Presenters/Authors
Philip McElmurray
(), Virginia Tech, pmac@vt.edu;
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Robert Creed
(), Appalachian State Universtiy, creedrp@appstate.edu;
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Bryan Brown
(), Virginia Tech, stonefly@vt.edu;
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