Metazoan Parasite Infracommunities in Five Sciaenids from the Central Peruvian Coast
Vol. 93(2): 175-180
Marcelo E Oliva/+, José L Luque*
Instituto de Investigaciones Oceanológicas, FAREMAR, Universidad de Antofagasta, Casilla Postal 170, Antofagasta, Chile *Departamento de Parasitologia Animal, Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Caixa Postal 74508, 23851-970 Seropédica, RJ, Brasil
Parasitological analysis of 237 Menticirrhus ophicephalus, 124 Paralonchurus peruanus, 249 Sciaena deliciosa, 50 Sciaena fasciata and 308 Stellifer minor from Callao (Perú) yielded 37 species of metazoan parasites (14 Monogenea, 11 Copepoda, 4 Nematoda, 3 Acanthocephala, 1 Digenea, 1 Aspidobothrea, 1 Eucestoda, 1 Isopoda and 1 Hirudinea). Only one species, the copepoda Bomolochus peruensis, was common to all five hosts. The majority of the components of the infracommunities analyzed are ectoparasites. The Brillouin index (H) and evenness (J´) were applied to the fully sampled metazoan parasite infracommunities. High values of prevalence and mean abundance of infection are associated to the polyonchoinean monogeneans; the low values of J' reinforce the strong dominance of this group in the studied communities. The paucity of the endoparasite fauna may be a consequence of the unstable environment due to an upwelling system, aperiodically affected by the El Niño Southern Oscillation phenomena.
Key words: marine sciaenids - parasite community - diversity - Peruvian coast
The structure of the metazoan parasite community of fish, like that of other vertebrates and invertebrates, has recently attracted some attention. The first definition of a parasitic community was given by Cloutman (1975) who said that it is "the complex of individuals belonging to the different parasite species inhabiting a host". Studies focusing on the structure of parasite communities in marine fish, in terms of diversity, are scarce. There are few papers that consider the parasite community in fishes in terms of both endo and ectoparasites (Thoney 1991, Luque & Oliva 1993a, Campos & Carbonell 1994, Luque 1994, Molloy et al. 1995, Luque et al. 1996, Groenewold et al. 1996, Kennedy & Pojmanska 1996, Takemoto et al. 1996) and only one (Campos & Carbonell 1994) analyzed the community structure in terms of diversity. The goal of this paper is to develop an analysis of community structure in five sciaenids from the Peruvian coast. This is the first paper that analyzes five related host species in this manner.
Table I | Table II | Table III | Table IV
+Corresponding author. Fax: +56-55-247542. E-mail: meoliva@reuna.cl
Received 1 November 1996
Accepted 28 November 1997
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