Thermodynamics of trematode infectivity

Temperature is an important factor influencing the biology of organisms and is intrinsically linked to climate change. The establishment of trematodes in target hosts is potentially susceptible to temperature changes effecting parasite infectivity or host susceptibility, and therefore in order to develop predictive frameworks of host-parasite dynamics under climate change large-scale analyses are required. The present study analyses the thermodynamics of the infectivity of larval trematodes including miracidia, cercariae and metacercariae from experimental data contained in the scientific literature using the Arrhenius critical incremental energy of activation (E*), an accurate measure of temperature-driven reaction rates. For miracidia and cercariae, infectivity increases as the temperature rises reaching a plateau over optimal thermal ranges before declining at higher temperatures. In contrast, metacercarial infectivity is at its greatest at low temperatures, declining with increasing temperature.