Checklist of the helminths of the kelp gull, Larus dominicanus (Aves: Laridae), with new records from Chile

Abstract

Kelp gulls (Larus dominicanus) have a circumpolar distribution in the southern hemisphere. Their range extends as far north as Ecuador and they occur along the southern coast of South America and Africa as well as Australia, New Zealand and sub-Antarctic Islands. This study presents a checklist that summarizes sites of infections, localities, life cycles and their intermediate hosts (if known), and the pertinent references to demonstrate the wide diversity of kelp gull parasitic helminths. Our review of the existing literature (59 publications) on kelp gull parasites provided information on a total of 21 families and 49 genera, including 62 described species, of which 36 were described in Argentina, 21 in Chile, 12 in Antarctica, 11 in New Zealand, 7 in Brazil and 3 in South Africa. In addition, 11 parasites are recorded from Talcahuano, Chile, 10 of them are new records for Chile and 4 represented new host records, Aporchis sp., Maritrema eroliae, Microphallus nicolli and Tetrameres skrjabini.

External and gastrointestinal parasites of the Franklin’s Gull, Leucophaeus pipixcan (Charadriiformes: Laridae), in Talcahuano, central Chile

“…Due to the above, this nematode mainly parasitizes piscivorous birds as has been reported in Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Cuba (Baruš et al, 1978;Wong & Anderson, 1982b;Diaz et al, 2004Diaz et al, , 2011Sanmartín et al, 2005;Álvarez et al, 2006;Santoro et al, 2011;Hannon et al, 2016). In Chile, it has been documented for the first time in the raptor M. chimango that is attributable to its piscivorous food habits (Oyarzún-Ruiz et al, 2016), and in the Kelp gull, L. dominicanus, (González-Acuña et al, 2009), a host species for which exists other records in Latin America (Diaz et al, 2004(Diaz et al, , 2011. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the Franklin's gull as a host of this nematode.…”

“…Furthermore, other genera of family Dilepididae (e.g. Alcataenia and Anomotaenia) have been recorded in other gulls such L. dominicanus and brown-hooded gull Chroicocephalus maculipennis from Chile (Torres et al, 1991(Torres et al, , 1992(Torres et al, , 1993González-Acuña et al, 2009) and other South American (Diaz et al, 2011) and European countries (Sanmartín et al, 2005;Álvarez et al, 2006;Sagerup et al, 2009;Santoro et al, 2011). Also, other cyclophyllidean genera such Aploparaksis (Aploparaksidae), Nadejdolepis, Microsomacanthus and Wardium (Hymenolepididae) have been recorded in gulls around the world (Khalil et al, 1994;González-Acuña et al, 2009;Sagerup et al, 2009;Bondarenko & Kontrimavichus, 2018).…”

“…Both groups act as definitive hosts, while crustaceans, fishes, and cephalopods are intermediate hosts (Hoberg, 1989). This parasite has been recorded in various birds of the order Charadriiformes (Alcidae, Stercorariidae, Laridae) from Europe (Roca et al, 2001;Santoro et al, 2011;Haukisalmi, 2015;Parejo et al, 2015), Asia (Uchida et al, 2005;Kuklin, 2011), North America (Threlfall, 1968;Muzaffar, 2009), South America (Argentina and Chile) (González-Acuña et al, 2009;Diaz et al, 2011), and Antarctica (Barbosa & Palacios, 2009;Rocka, 2019). In Latin America, it has been isolated from the gull L. dominicanus in Chile (Torres et al, 1991(Torres et al, , 1992(Torres et al, , 1993González-Acuña et al, 2009) and later from the same host in Argentina (Diaz et al, 2011).…”

“…(Digenea: Echinostomatidae) was collected from the small intestine of two individuals with a prevalence of 6.7% (Table 2, Figure 3a). The genus Aporchis (Stossich, 1905) has a wide geographical distribution being associated with seabirds, and was previously registered in the Palearctic (Bosch et al, 2000;Roca et al, 2001;Santoro et al, 2011;Radwan, 2014), Nearctic (McCauley & Pratt, 1960Hoberg, 1981) and Neotropical regions (González-Acuña et al, 2009). In Chile, this genus was found in the Kelp gull, L. dominicanus, by González-Acuña et al (2009), with which the Franklin's gull shares habitats during the southern summer, and it is still unknown what other gull species could act as a host in the area.…”

“…This parasite has an indirect life cycle with decapod crustaceans as intermediate hosts; Emerita analoga (Stimpson, 1857) and Hemigrapsus crenulatus (Milne-Edwards, 1837) (Balboa et al, 2009;González-Acuña et al, 2009), both widely distributed along the coast of Chile (Retamal, 1981). Profilicollis altmani has been reported in Charadriiformes from the Neotropical region (Tantaleán et al, 2005;Riquelme et al, 2006;Gonzáles-Viera et al, 2009;González-Acuña et al, 2017;Rodríguez et al, 2017;Gomez-Puerta & Naupay, 2019), being previously isolated from Franklin's gulls in northern and central Chile and Peru (Tantaleán et al, 2005;Riquelme et al, 2006;Rodríguez et al, 2017), areas where it has also been recorded on its intermediate hosts and sympatric birds (Riquelme et al, 2006;Iannacone et al, 2007;Balboa et al, 2009).…”