Nothing New; Many Cases of “Invaded Invaders” and “Introduced Life Cycles” Ignored; Plenitude of Parasite Pest-Control Efforts Not Considered

Ernest H. Williams, Jr.[1] and Lucy Bunkley-Williams[2], Extraordinary Professors, Potchefstroom Campus, North-West University, South Africa; 1827 Paseo Los Robles, Mayagüez, PR 00682-7900, ermest.williams1@upr.edu [1] Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico (retired) [2] Department of Biology, UPR (retired)

Not the First “Invaded Invaders,” and the others were Ignored Cases of other Invaded Invaders on USA regulated tropical islands might have been of interest to Holldorf et al. (2015). For example, Barton and Pichelin (1999) found an acanthocephalan, Acanthocephalus bufonis, (from Asia) infecting the Cane Toad, Rhinella marina (also called Bufo marinus), (from Puerto Rico)[3] in Hawaii. Barton and Riley (2004) found the pentastome, Raillietiella indica, (also from Asia) in the Cane Toad in Oahu, Hawaii. Criscione and Font (2001) reported novel, exotic parasites in the exotic Mediterranean Gecko, Hemidactylus turcicus (2 species of pentastomes in southeast Louisiana and 2 species of nematodes in Cuba). Exotic fishes are frequently infected by exotic parasites (e.g., various carps; Goldfish, Carassius auratus; mosquito fishes, Gambusia spp.; etc. all around the world with Anchorworm, Lernaea cyprinacea, and Japanese Fish Louse, Argulus japonicus.

Not the First “Introduced Life Cycles” and these were also Ignored We (Bunkley-Williams and Williams, 1994, 1995) described a case of a digenean bird parasite, which was naturally present on a tropical island (Puerto Rico), but lacked intermediate hosts. When these exotic hosts were introduced, the parasite began to complete its life cycle on the island. We (Dyer et al., 1999) found a Green Iguana, Iguana iguana, and its nematode parasite were introduced into Puerto Rico, apparently from Venezuela. Since then, both the iguana and the nematode have become established. We do not know if the parasite life cycle depends on exotic species.

Control of Exotic Pests with Parasites is Nothing New, and References Ignored The idea of biological control is nothing new, has been attempted since around the year 200, and parasites on an exotic pest have been used since the beginning of the 17th century (Aldrovandi, 1602; Simmonds et al., 1976). The “bible” of this topic over 80 years is Bartlett et al. (1977) and more recently (Van Driesche and Bellows, 1996). However, Holldorf et al. (2015) did not mention any of these studies. Such attempts are legion, but we will just mention a few. Marr et al. (2008) considered a nematode might help control an exotic frog in Hawaii. Ramos-Ascherl et al. (2015) examined for potential parasites to help control the exotic Red Lionfish, Pterois volitans, in the Caribbean. We have been contacted by authorities in Hawaii and Florida for parasites to control the introduced Puerto Rican Coqui, Eleutherodactylus coqui. We declined on both occasions because we did not think it was practical, and because Puerto Ricans would have run-us-out-of-town-on-a-rail, if we tried to do anything to our beloved frog.

Three Common Names for the same Parasite Holldorf et al. (2015) in the first paragraph (Background) of their Abstract (also in the Discussion), called the parasite a “flatworm.” This term is traditional used for digeneans, and cestodes are usually called “tapeworms,” as they referred to them in the second paragraph (Methods) of their Abstract. In their third paragraph (Results) of the Abstract, a third common name, “cestode,” was used. A single common name might be preferable. Later “helminth” is used, but properly.

The major problem of Holldorf et al. (2015) is that they do not connect and incorporate their work into existing knowledge.

Literature Cited

Aldrovandi, U. 1602. De animalibus insectis libri septem. Bonon Bologne: apud Ioan: Bapt: Bellagambam.

Bartlett, B. R., C. P. Clausen, P. DeBach, et al. 1977. Introduced parasites and predators of arthropod pests and weeds: A world review [over 80 years]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture Handbook No. 480: 551 pp. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112019255600;view=1up;seq=6

Barton, D. P., and S. Pichelin. 1999. Acanthocephalus bufonis (Acanthocephala) from Bufo marinus (Bufonidae: Amphibia) in Hawai’i. Parasite 6: 269– 272.

Barton, D. P., and J. Riley. 2004. Raillietiella indica (Pentastomida) from the Lungs of the Giant Toad, Bufo marinus (Amphibia), in Hawaii, U.S.A. Comparative Parasitology 71: 251-254.

Bunkley-Williams, L. and E. H. Williams, Jr. 1994. Parasites of Puerto Rican freshwater sport fishes. Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Department of Marine Sciences, University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, 168 pp. [also Caribbean Journal of Science Special Publication 5: www.caribjsci.org/publications.html; http://www.uprm.edu/biology/cjs/epub5/book.pdf] [updated Spanish version 1995]

Criscione, C. D. and W. F. Font. 2001. The guest playing host: colonization of the introduced Mediterranean Gecko, Hemidactylus turcicus, by helminth parasites in
southeastern Louisiana. Journal of Parasitology 87: 1273-1278.

Dyer, W. G., L. Bunkley-Williams, and E. H. Williams, Jr. 1999. Two new Caribbean records of parasitic nematodes collected from reptiles in Puerto Rico: Aplectana pusilla in Amphisbaena bakeri, and Alaeuris vogelsangi in Iguana iguana. Caribbean Journal of Science 35: 158-159. http://academic.uprm.edu/publications/cjs/Vol35b/35_158-159.pdf [231]

Holldorf, E. T., S. R. Siers, J. Q. Richmond, P. E. Klug, R. N. Reed. 2015. Invaded invaders: Infection of invasive Brown Treesnakes on Guam by an exotic larval cestode with a life cycle comprised of non-native hosts. PLoS ONE 10(12)

Marr, S. R., W. J. Mautz, A. H. Hara. 2008. Parasite loss and introduced species: a comparison of the parasites of the Puerto Rican tree frog, (Eleutherodactylus coqui), in its native and introduced ranges. Biological Invasions 10: 1289-1298.

Ramos-Ascherl, Z., E. H. Williams, Jr., L. Bunkley-Williams, L. J. Tuttle, P. C. Sikkel and M. A. Hixon. 2015. Parasitism in Pterois volitans (Scorpaenidae) from coastal waters of Puerto Rico, the Cayman Islands, and the Bahamas. Journal of Parasitology 101: 50-56. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lucy_Williams4

Simmonds, F. J., J. M. Franz, and R. I. Sailer. 1976. History of biological control. In Theory and Practice of Biological Control (C. B. Huffaker and P. S. Messenger, editors). Academic Press, New York. 788 pp.

Van Driesche, R. G. and T. S. Bellows, Jr. 1996. Biological control. Chapman and Hall, New York. 539 pp. . . . . . [3] Native to Central and South America, but sent to Hawaii from Puerto Rico where it is also an exotic.