Community ecology of the parasites of adult spot, Leiostomus xanthurus, and Atlantic croaker, Micropogonias undulatus (Sciaenidae) in the Cape Hatteras region

Abstract

Twenty‐three species of metazoan parasites were recorded from adult spot and 26 from adult croaker. Of the 33 parasitic species found, 17 occurred in both spot and croaker. No significant differences in intensity of parasites occurred between sexes of either spot or croaker. All of the parasites had over‐dispersed, or clumped, distributions among hosts. Adult spot and croaker collected offshore had much greater species‐richness, diversity, and total number of individual parasites than juvenile fishes collected in adjoining estuaries during another study. The juvenile spot and croaker had less time to acquire parasites and inhabited less diverse and more confined habitats in inshore estuaries, which resulted in less diverse parasite communities than offshore fishes. The number of species and diversity of parasites in adult fish was greater in croaker than spot. However, when only gastrointestinal helminths were considered, spot had greater species‐richness as well as greater numbers of individual helminths, suggesting that they had a more diverse diet and that they fed on more infected intermediate hosts than croaker. In both adult spot and croaker the mean number of parasitic species was greater than those of freshwater fishes and fewer than those for birds and mammals. The total number of individual parasites was similar to that of freshwater fishes. The opportunistic diet and the migratory habits of both spot and croaker contribute to their diverse parasite faunas. Comparison of adult spot and croaker parasite faunas collected offshore indicated that their respective parasite component communities were distinct and that similar parasite infracommunity variability existed in both hosts and that their communities were not ‘random’ samples, but restricted subsets of the compound community. Although the parasite dominance hierarchy in adults of both species varied slightly between areas and seasons sampled, there appeared to be a predictable dominant species that was accompanied by subordinate, less predictable species. However, the variability in both relative intensities and presence‐absence of parasites within communities resulting from their diverse diets make them less predictable than those of other vertebrates with less diverse diets such as the lesser scaup duck and more like those of other marine fishes.

Communities of Helminth Parasites in Sciaenid Fish From the Alvarado Coast, Veracruz, Mexico, Southern Gulf of Mexico

“…Parasitic h (Nahhas & 2009) In general, trematodes and nematodes are the most numerous parasities species in marine fish, among them the sciaenids (Rohde & Heap, 1998;Zander et al, 1999), including those from tropical (Moravec et al, 1997;Sabas & Luque, 2003;Luque & Poulin, 2007), and temperate latitudes (Zander et al, 1999;Madhavi & Sai-Ram, 2000), and Our results also showed this condition, these results are similar to records in other sciaenids from the USA (Thoney, 1991(Thoney, , 1993, Peru (Oliva & Luque, 1998), and Brazil (Chaves & Luque, 1999;Alves & Luque, 2001;Sabas & Luque, 2003), adding that in our records of the parasites of U. coroides, the number of acanthocephalans (4 sp.) is high with respect to the registry for other scianids.…”

“…On the other hand, the parasite communities in five sciaenids are as rich and diverse as those in marine hosts in temperate (Châari et al, 2015) and tropical zones (Luque & Poulin, 2007;Madhavi & Triveni-Lakshmi, 2012), both in community components and infracommunities, especially with parasitic helminth communities of sciaenids from the west coast of the Atlantic. e.g., Leiostomus xanturus (S = 19, S = 6±1.9, H' = 1.4±0.69) and Micropogonias undulatus (S = 21, S = 7.3±2.3, H'= 1.8±0.63) (Thoney, 1993); Cynoscion guatucupa (S = 15, S = 4.6±1.8) and Macrodon ancylodon (S = 14, S = 2.8±1.3) (Sabas & Luque, 2003); Menticirrhus americanus (S = 12, S = 2.2±1.3, H = 0.56±0.28) (Chaves & Luque, 1999); Micropogonias furnieri (S = 20, S = 2.9±2, H = 0.49±0.41) (Alves & Luque, 2001), and Paralonchurus brasiliensis (S = 12, S = 2.1±0.9) . Finally, it has to be said that parasitic relations of hosts in wild populations, with biological, commercial and food relevance, and high farming potential, as those of sciaenids (Ohs et al, 2013), pose no zoonotic risk, and their parasitic helminth communities are rich and diverse.…”

Las comunidades de helmintos del lenguado (Symphurus plagiusa) en la costa de Campeche, México

“…Las infracomunidades de helmintos de S. plagiusa fueron similares en el número promedio de especies (2 ± 0.55 -3 ± 0.66) (Cuadro 3) con otras especies de peces como Labrus merula (riqueza: 4.17 ± 0.90), Symphodus tinca (4.15 ± 1.29) (Campos y Carbonell, 1994) o Leiostomus xanthurus (6.0 ± 1.9) (Thoney, 1993). Los valores también son similares a los de otros peces tropicales pelágicos, como Trachinotus carolinus (4 ± 1 -6 ± 2) (Sánchez-Ramírez y , Menticirrhus ophicephalus (4.1 ± 1.5) (Luque y Oliva, 1999), y Epinephelus morio (4.11 ± 2.08) (Vidal-Martínez et al, 1998).…”

Stock identification of the sciaenid fishMicropogonias undulatusin the western North Atlantic Ocean using parasites as biological tags

“…(Par), Graffilid (Gra). Dotted horizontal lines represent the limits of the study performed by Thoney (1993). Solid vertical lines represent the latitudinal range of each individual species.…”

“…Solid vertical lines represent the latitudinal range of each individual species. Asterisks denote those species not documented by Thoney (1993). …”