 A simple model to assess selection for treatment-resistant sea liceAlexander G. Murray Ecological Modelling, 2011, vol. 222, issue 11, 1854-1862 Abstract: Sea lice are damaging marine copepod parasites that infest wild and farmed salmon. Lice are controlled largely by the application of medicines; however resistance has evolved to several such treatments. A simple model is used to explore situations under which treatment-resistant lice are likely to emerge. The model consists of farmed and wild populations of hosts that are infected with lice that exist in treatment-sensitive and treatment-resistant morphs. Resistance is assumed to impose costs on lice fitness, so the sensitive morphs have a selective advantage in the absence of treatment. Larval lice are exchanged between treated farmed hosts and untreated wild hosts by variable water currents. The model finds that resistance is most strongly selected under moderate levels of treatment on farms. High levels of treatment remove both sensitive and resistant lice from farms and, leave the wild untreated fish as a source of lice. The treatment per fish required to eradicate the resistant morphs increases as hydrodynamic mixing rates increase and so controlling emergence of resistance becomes less cost effective when mixing rates are high. Keywords: Sea lice; Treatment resistance; Hydrodynamics; Aquaculture (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:222:y:2011:i:11:p:1854-1862 DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2011.03.016 Access Statistics for this article Ecological Modelling is currently edited by Brian D. Fath More articles in Ecological Modelling from Elsevier |
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