Comments on: Tongue Parasites to People of Earth: Thank You For Your Overfishing

By: The Parasite - One Brief MomentOne Brief Moment

The Parasite - One Brief MomentOne Brief Moment — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 04:38:23 +0000

[...] Tongue Parasites to People of Earth: Thank You For Your Overfishing | The Loom (blogs.discovermagazine.com) Share this:ShareDiggFacebookRedditStumbleUpon This entry was posted in Bad Boys and tagged co-dependency, parasite infestations, parasitic relationships by Summer Said. Bookmark the permalink. [...]

By: Isopods galore! « Book Talk and Walk

Isopods galore! « Book Talk and Walk — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 18:11:56 +0000

[...] During our walk for our last Book Talk and Walk I mentioned the pill bugs we saw under some logs. These interesting critters are not bugs or insects at all. But rather belong to another group of arthropods the crustaceans. The crustaceans are a diverse group that include familiar animals such as crabs, shrimp, lobsters, and crayfish. The familiar pill bugs that you find in your yard or garden and local woods under logs, leaf litter, outdoor plant pots and any other moist spot belong to a group of crustaceans that are called isopods. There are about 10,000 species of isopods worldwide. They are found in the deep sea, shallow oceans, freshwater, forest and garden and even in desert. They also vary in size with some species very tiny and some like the deep sea giant isopod (pictured) getting quite large. The giant isopod gets a large as a foot and lives at depths of 4000 feet. Most isopod species are scavengers feeding on detritus and dead organisms. A few species are predatory and actively hunt for food. Many isopod species are parasites especially on fish. They latch on to gills or another part of the fish and feed on the blood. In one bizarre case an isopod parasite will eat the tongue of the fish and live in the mouth of the fish replacing the original tongue! [...]

By: robin

robin — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 08:21:24 +0000

Awesome article. For me it was quite disturbing, especially the photo. Great information but I am suspect of the conclusion fishing has anything to do with it, although this may very well be the case. There certainly isn’t enough data to arrive at that conclusion (at least presented in the article) unless it was looked for in the first place.

I’d have to agree that a study of 2 populations and less than 300 subjects in terms of statistical data, is a tiny study. Particularly the limited populations studied (two). There are too many variables between the two environments (aside from one being a protected habitat) to make any conclusions related to the one detail of fishing. Are the insect populations identical? If not I would suspect that could be a factor. What about plant life? What about the general population of the parasites and differences in their anatomies? And on and on.

As a sport fisherman myself I have noticed differences in size of fish more varied than these in a one mile stretch of river simply due to the amount and type of vegetation near the fishing spot and the effect that the vegetation has on the insect and bird (they eat the insects too) populations. I would also say that my ‘study’ involves somewhere close to this amount of fish. no disrespect to the study only want to point out that every single aspect of an ecosystem has an effect on other parts of that ecosystem in a much more intricate and beautiful way than one or two details… And that fishing while being one of these details, is only one of them.

That said, I would say that over fishing a thousand miles away can have an even bigger effect on the fish here than any of those things…

By: What you didn’t know about (some) fish « Of tan lines and thought farts.

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 06:50:00 +0000

[...] your appetite. If you want to keep reading about it, read more from Discover magazine’s site. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. Tags: crustacean, fish, [...]

By: Iain

Iain — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 01:09:43 +0000

@3 Peter

At first blush your concept has merit, however once the big fish get caught in the, say 4 inch, mesh and the fishers come up losing, the net mesh size will be reduced as it is imperative t0 maintain a catch. So being smaller confers an immediate advantage, however man will see to it that it doesn’t last.
We will be competing for krill, then zoo plankton and nothing on earth can stop us except maybe bacti and/or virus’s.

By: Tommy L

Tommy L — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 03:28:07 +0000

Hi Stefano, thank you for your reply and directing me to those studies. It appears that my institute does not have access to Sala-Bonzano & Mariani (2011), so I will contact you directly for a reprint of that paper. I have been discussing the idea of fisheries altering the ecology of marine parasites with some collaborators and we find your results to be very interesting – we are interested in doing similar studies in our parts of the world and as Carl mentioned, to see what pattern we may discover in the parasite communities of commercially-targeted species in different regions.
Perhaps you might have also seen this paper (currently In Press) – Marzoug et al. 2012: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1383576912000141

By: Bob Goss

Bob Goss — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:52:35 +0000

Carl,
I’ve enjoyed your books on evolution. Recently I read some articles on “funny statistics” and the book “Bad Science”. Which made me wonder about your response to Chris about all the other things that might make that P value look so nice. Why was one area “no fishing”? Was it more pristine to begin with? Was it further from shore? Deeper? More diverse species, etc.? I’m no expert but wonder how many contributing factors might have determined the outcome in addition to fishing.
Bob

By: Stefano Mariani

Stefano Mariani — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 10:51:08 +0000

Hello – in reply to Tommy L: you’re right: every fish species has many parasites. In this particular instance, we found that these two areas showed an overall indistinguishable parasite fauna and we reported these results in two previous papers (see Sala-Bozano et al 2009: DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-294X.2009.04404.x and Sala-Bozano & Mariani 2011: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771411000643 ). Then we focused on the most conspicuous of them, Ceratothoa italica, as it was also the one that we did not find anywhere else across the Mediterranean.

By: Rami

Rami — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 02:26:15 +0000

Mmm. Just what I wanted to read before dinner. Makes me glad to have my own tongue though.

By: rafael matias

rafael matias — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 14:33:24 +0000

I think that every medical student should read “parasite Rex” and “Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body” in the first year of graduation. Thinking in evolution perspective is not easy, but once you start it’s become very helpful to understand every subject on biology field

Keep the wonderful work

Thanks !