GELIFES Seminars - David Thieltges

David Thieltges (GELIFES/NIOZ)

Parasites in marine ecosystems

What do they do and should we care?

Parasites are ubiquitous components of marine ecosystems, but only recently ecology has come to acknowledge the full scope of their effects on hosts and ecosystems. In this talk, I will give a conceptual overview of the ecological roles of parasites in marine ecosystems and illustrate them with empirical examples from coastal systems such as the Wadden Sea. In addition, I will highlight how ongoing environmental change in the form of climate change and biological invasions increasingly alter parasite-host interactions and explore long-term shifts in parasite diversity and populations in response to changing environmental conditions. Finally, I will reflect on the broader implications of these findings for our understanding of parasites as integral, yet often overlooked, components of marine and other ecosystems.

Biosketch:
David Thieltges is a marine ecologist specialising in the ecological role of parasites in marine ecosystems. He works at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) and is an honorary professor for Marine Parasite Ecology at the University of Groningen (GELIFES). His research combines field observations, experiments, population modelling and food web analyses to investigate how parasites influence marine hosts across levels of biological organization, from individual organisms to entire populations and communities. Another central focus of his work is understanding the patterns and processes that govern parasite infections in the sea, including how biodiversity shapes disease risk and how global change drivers, such as rising temperatures and biological invasions, affect marine parasites and disease dynamics. In addition, his research explores large-scale patterns of parasitism using extensive datasets and macroecological approaches to uncover the forces shaping parasite diversity and distribution in marine environments.