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Host diet alters trematode replication and elemental composition

Highly productive ecosystems often exhibit high rates of parasitism. Theory and experimental evidence suggest that consumption of high-quality diets by hosts living in these ecosystems facilitates parasite replication, presumably by enhancing the parasite’s access to nutrients. However, a direct link between parasite replication and the ability to acquire nutrients from host resources has not been shown. We manipulated diet quality and quantity of field-collected infected and uninfected snails (Physella sp.). After 16 d on experimental diets, we compared parasite replication and virulence in infected snails. To estimate the parasite’s ability to acquire nutrients, we compared %C, N, and P of parasitized and unparasitized host tissues. Parasites in snail hosts fed diets enriched or depleted in P maintained their replication rates, but those in hosts fed a diet with intermediate P exhibited decreased replication (assayed by release of trematode transmission stages). Regardless of the quality of the host’s diet, tissue occupied by parasites was P rich relative to the same tissue in unparasitized snails. However, compared to the same tissues in unparasitized snails, %C and N of tissues occupied by parasites were elevated only in snails fed the low-P diet. Neither parasitism nor diet treatment affected snail mortality. Our results indicate that the quality of a host’s diet can alter trematode replication, but not in the direction we predicted. However, we found no evidence that high-quality diets enhance the parasite’s ability to acquire C, N, or P. Instead, this parasite may be capable of enriching the nutrient content of its host, regardless of the quality of the host’s diet.