Mudflats are not only home to large numbers of bivalves, polychaetes,crustaceans, fish and birds, but also to diverse communities of parasites. In thischapter, we illustrate and explore how the resulting parasite-host interactions canaffect host populations, communities and food webs in mudflat ecosystems, equallingin importance the effects resulting from other species interactions, such as predation and competition. We first give an overview of the distribution and ecologyof typical parasites occurring in mudflat ecosystems. Then we illustrate the mainabiotic and biotic drivers of parasite infection levels in mudflat hosts. Following this,we conceptualise and illustrate the many direct and indirect effects of parasite-hostinteractions on host populations, communities and food webs in mudflat ecosystems.Finally, we highlight the potential impact of ongoing global changes such asincreasing temperature and species introductions on parasite-host interactions inmudflat ecosystems. With this condensed overview of the presence and ecologicalrole of parasites in mudflat ecosystems, we hope to increase the appreciation of themanifold ecological effects of parasite-host interactions on host populations, communitiesand food webs of mudflat ecosystems, and to spark further research in this field
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