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In salt marsh ecosystems, daggerblade grass shrimp, Palaemon (Palaemonetes) pugio, play a crucial role in food webs and serve as the definitive host for the bopyrid isopod Probopyrus pandalicola. These ectoparasites infest the branchial chambers of grass shrimp, which can lead to decreased energy availability and sterilization of infected hosts. Although bopyrid isopod infestation of daggerblade grass shrimp has been frequently reported in literature from coastal marshes of the southeastern United States, the prevalence of this parasite has not been recently documented in daggerblade grass shrimp from marshes of the northeastern United States. The goal of this project was to quantify the prevalence of Pr. pandalicola infestations in Pa. pugio across Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We evaluated bopyrid isopod prevalence from shrimp collected from 5 different salt marsh habitats along Cape Cod in August 2021. Bopyrid isopod infestations were found in shrimp at 4 of 5 salt marshes, with prevalence ranging from 0.04 to 14.1%. Seasonal resampling of one of the salt marshes revealed the highest average infestation prevalence in spring (<17.1%) and an isolated high of 30.3% prevalence in a single salt panne. A series of linear and multivariate models showed that panne area, shrimp abundance, and distance to shoreline were related to Pr. pandalicola shrimp infestations in salt pannes in summer. This study describes the prevalence of the bopyrid isopod infesting daggerblade grass shrimp in salt marshes in New England, with implications for how parasitized shrimp influence salt marsh food webs in which they are found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Bocas del Toro, Panama, tourists are shuffled on panga boats between Dolphin Bay, Starfish Beach, and Sloth Island in hopes of seeing and photographing those species specifically – one at a time. The aim of this research was to explore the governance of the wildlife tourism industry by gauging tourist satisfaction and assessing the relationship between industry operations and tourist demand. A mixed method approach utilized semi-structured interviews with tour operators (n = 21) and surveys with wildlife tourists (n = 101). Empirical evidence demonstrates that a collectivist organization with de facto ownership/control of wildlife tourism sites has not been effective at self-governing towards a sustainable industry capable of ensuring the well-being of target species and conservation. Communication issues between tourists and guides are also shown to be behind the creation of the de-territorialized and reductionist (and consequentially detrimental) wildlife tourism attraction map. This, along with survey results demonstrating unaddressed demand for providing more education, better wildlife treatment and conservation, together poke holes in the assumption that industry governance might be best steered by global efforts to shift consciousness to include demand for wildlife equity. Findings instead place priority on the need to interrogate the financial incentives that drive industry governance and towards understanding how the profitability of wildlife equity and conservation could be empirically demonstrated to those who control industry operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]