Metazoan parasite species in cultured mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis in the Thermaikos Gulf (North Aegean Sea, Greece)

Abstract

This is the first study on parasites of cultured Mytilus galloprovincialis L. in Greek waters, and is based on samples collected every 2 to 3 mo between September 2000 and November 2001 at 3 stations in the Thermaikos Gulf. Each sample comprised 40 mussels. We found 4 metazoan parasite species: hydroid Eugymnanthea inquilina, gill turbellarian Urastoma cyprinae, trematode Proctoces maculatus and gut copepod Mytilicola intestinalis. Of 840 mussels examined, 406 (48.3%) mussels were harbouring hydroids of E. inquilina, 278 (33.1%) were infested with U. cyprinae, 94 (11.2%) were infested with M. intestinalis, and only 7 (0.8%) were infested with P. maculatus. The prevalence and intensity of these parasites were related to temperature and pollution. Mussels infested with these parasites had significantly lower condition indices than non-infested mussels; larger mussels were more often infested than smaller ones. KEY WORDS: Mytilus galloprovincialis · Parasites · Metazoa · Condition indexResale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisher

Effect of culture system on the prevalence of parasites of the Mediterranean mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis (Lamark, 1819)

“…Low observed prevalence for M. intestinalis, P. maculatus and S. mytilovum infection did not allow a reliable statistical analysis. The low prevalence of infection by these parasites has been previously reported in other geographical areas of the world (e.g., robledo et al, 1994a;rayyan and Chintiroglou, 2003;rayyan et al, 2004), although this can be influenced by many factors such as water pollution.…”

“…KArAGIANNIS D., VATSOS I.N., THEODOrIDIS A., ANGELIDIS P. tion of various geographical areas and sea depths with presence of parasitic species (robledo and Figueras, 1994;robledo et al, 1994;rayyan et al, 2004;Francisco et al, 2010). With the exception of one published study (Karagiannis and Angelidis, 2007) on Marteilia spp., there are no published reports on the overall effect of the system used for culture of the Mediterranean mussel on prevalence of individual parasitic species and on total parasitic load.…”

“…Previous studies (rayyan and Chintiroglou, 2003;rayyan et al, 2004;Karagiannis and Angelidis 2007) have indicated that most parasites of cultured Mediterranean mussels in the Thermaikos gulf occur throughout the year and, especially during the months when sampling took place, their prevalence had significant differences, probably due to their life cycles. Thus, these two periods were selected in order to examine possible effects t of the culture system on the prevalence of the parasites during the periods of low and high prevalence.…”

Virus-like particles in Urastoma cyprinae, a turbellarian parasite of Mytilus galloprovincialis

“…The turbellarian Urastoma cyprinae inhabits the gills of several marine bivalves including the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis (Fleming 1986, Robledo et al 1994, Crespo-González et al 2004, Rayyan et al 2004. During the course of our investigations on the morphology of U. cyprinae, we detected the presence of virus-like particles (VLPs) in the cytoplasm of some subepidermal cells of adult turbellarians.…”

First report of some parasites from Mediterranean mussel, Mytilus galloprovincialis Lamarck, 1819, collected from the Black Sea coast at Sinop

“…Mytilus galloprovincialis has been accepted as an aggressive invasive species and has a rapid growth rate under a wide range of environmental conditions, as well as a high level of tolerance to physiological limiting factors, which allows it to colonize in marginal areas (CalvoUgarteburu and McQuaid, 1998). Several diseases caused by parasites in the economically important mytilid mussel, M. galloprovincialis, have been documented (Murina and Solonchenko, 1991;Robledo et al, 1994;Villalba et al, 1997;Zaitsev and Alexandrov, 1998;Holodkovskaya, 2002;Rayyan et al, 2004;Gaevskaya, 2006;Machevsky et al, 2011). Several pathological occurrences threatening the health status of mussels have been reported: disorganization of the gill filaments reducing the feeding capacity of heavily infected mussels, weakness in juveniles and loss of harvest due to heavy infections of some protozoans, invasions of reproductive tissues causing parasitic castrations, and erosion and metaplasia in the intestinal epithelium (Lasiak, 1992;Cousteau et al, 1993;Robledo et al, 1994;Sprague and Orr, 1995;Villalba et al, 1997).…”