High recruitment rates of multiple species and hierarchical competition are the keys to a competitive exclusion model of community assembly in larval trematode communities in molluscs. Eutrophic environments provide conditions for accelerating trematode transmission and this would increase the strength of interspecific interactions. To test these predictions, we provide the first known assessment for a pulmonate snail host, and for highly productive aquatic environments, of the rates of colonisation and extinction at the level of individual snail host patches, of a large guild of trematode species. Using a uniquely large dataset from a relatively long-term mark-recapture study of Lymnaea stagnalis in six eutrophic fishponds in central Europe, we demonstrate extraordinarily rapid colonisation by trematodes of a snail host, thus meeting the assumptions of the competitive exclusion model. Overall annual colonisation rates ranged from 243% to 503% year(-1) so that the odds of trematode establishment in an individual snail in these ponds are two to five times per year. Extinction rates were substantially lower than colonisation rates and, therefore, would not result in turnover rates high enough to significantly affect prevalence patterns in the snail populations. At the species level, analyses of sample-based estimates of probabilities of colonisation revealed that shared species traits associated with transmission and competitive abilities determined the limits of colonisation abilities. Colonisation rates were exceedingly high for the species transmitted to the snails passively via eggs. There was a significant effect of species competitive abilities on colonisation rates due to subordinate species being substantially better colonisers than both strong and weak dominants, a pattern consistent with the predictions of the competition-colonisation trade-off hypothesis. Our results suggest that, with the extraordinarily high trematode colonisation potential in the area studied, the spatial and temporal patterns of intraspecific heterogeneity in recruitment may provide conditions for intensification of interspecific interactions so that complex community assembly rules may be involved.

Institute of Parasitology Biology Centre of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Branišovská 31 370 05 České Budějovice Czech Republic

References provided by Crossref.org

Small but diverse: larval trematode communities in the small freshwater planorbids Gyraulus albus and Segmentina nitida (Gastropoda: Pulmonata) from the Ruhr River, Germany

Biodiversity of trematodes in their intermediate mollusc and fish hosts in the freshwater ecosystems of Europe

The Early Worm Catches the Bird? Productivity and Patterns of Trichobilharzia szidati Cercarial Emission from Lymnaea stagnalis

Avian schistosomes and outbreaks of cercarial dermatitis

Species diversity of Plagiorchis Lühe, 1899 (Digenea: Plagiorchiidae) in lymnaeid snails from freshwater ecosystems in central Europe revealed by molecules and morphology