Parasite acquisition by the invasive Chinese sleeper ( Perccottus glenii Dybowski, 1877) (Gobiiformes: Odontobutidae) in Latvia and Ukraine

Abstract

The Perccottus glenii is one of the most invasive of European fish species. During August-September 2019, we examined Chinese sleeper from six waterbodies in Latvia and Ukraine for parasites. Seventeen parasite species were registered, including two ciliate species, one coccidia, one monogenean, one cestode, six trematodes, three nematodes, one acanthocephalan, one parasitic copepod, and one bivalve glochidia. Maximum species richness was registered in Ukraine, with eight species at Vylkove and three species at Lake Kartal. Numbers in Latvia were generally lower with three species at Ilgas and just one at Gailezers. The parasite fauna registered in Latvia was poor overall, the richest site being the University pond. Two non-native parasite species were registered, the monogenean Gyrodactylus perccotti and the copepod Neoergasilus japonicus. Gyrodactylus perccotti was observed in Lake Kartal and the Danube delta in Ukraine, but not in Latvia, while N. japonicus only occurred in the University Pond in Latvia. This is the first record of this species in Latvia. Low parasite acquisition by the Chinese sleeper in Latvia may be caused by the release of this fish from aquaria, which is commonly registered in the region. It is likely that such low parasite loads have contributed to the formation of stable populations and the subsequent increase in expansion.

Parasitic Helminths and Freshwater Fish Introduction in Europe: A Systematic Review of Dynamic Interactions

“…As with Ponto-Caspian Gobiidae, and according to the interactions recorded in this review, it seems that the majority of native parasites acquired by P. glenii in its non-native range are larval stages, e.g., larvae of R. acus [35,74], S. contortus [35,40,166,169], Streptocara crassicauda (Creplin, 1829) [74], Triaenophorus crassus Forel, 1868 [74], Diplostomum chromatophorum (Brown, 1931) [35,171] and Opisthioglyphe ranae (Frölich, 1791) [35,40]. This observation could thus well be a general trend in non-native hosts/acquired parasites systems, complementary to the accepted idea that these systems include mainly generalist parasites.…”

“…Kvach et al [166] and attracted attention to the potential spillback that several species, namely the Acanthocephala Acanthocephalus anguillae (Müller, 1780) and A. lucii, the Nematoda Spiroxys contortus (Rudolphi, 1819) and P. tomentosa, the Cestoda Paradilepis scolecina (Rudolphi, 1819), Valipora campylancristrota (Wedl, 1855) and Ophiotaenia europaea Odening, 1963, the Monogenea Gyrodactylus luciopercae Gusev, 1962 and the Digenea Metorchis xanthosomus (Creplin, 1846) and Schiginella schigini (Bykhovskaja-Pavlovskaja, 1962), could undergo. Ophiotaenia europea, recorded from Germany, Ukraine and Russia, is of particular interest as it shows the possibility of establishing parasitological links between non-native fish and native reptiles, as it is transmitted to freshwater snakes Natrix tessellata (Laurenti, 1768) and Natrix natrix (Linnaeus, 1758) through fish consumption [35,[166][167][168][169]. This scenario does not only affect wild fauna, but can also have a notable impact on pets, e.g., M. xanthosomus was found several times in the introduced P. glenii [74,75,166,169] and in N. fluviatilis [133] and is of veterinary importance as it is known to infect dogs [170].…”

“…Ophiotaenia europea, recorded from Germany, Ukraine and Russia, is of particular interest as it shows the possibility of establishing parasitological links between non-native fish and native reptiles, as it is transmitted to freshwater snakes Natrix tessellata (Laurenti, 1768) and Natrix natrix (Linnaeus, 1758) through fish consumption [35,[166][167][168][169]. This scenario does not only affect wild fauna, but can also have a notable impact on pets, e.g., M. xanthosomus was found several times in the introduced P. glenii [74,75,166,169] and in N. fluviatilis [133] and is of veterinary importance as it is known to infect dogs [170].…”

Parasite communities and genetic structure of non-native pumpkinseed,Lepomis gibbosus, in different Black Sea drainages of Ukraine

“…While most of the parasite species found in Ukrainian pumpkinseed were represented predominantly by common native species acquired in their new range along the lower Danube basin (see Kulakovskaya and Koval, 1973;Kvach et al, 2020), most of these were only found accidentally, with low prevalence and abundance (Tab. 4), with just two native eye flukes, D. pseudospathaceum and T. clavate, found more commonly.…”

Generalist invasion in a complex lake food web

“…While Amur sleeper is efficient at utilizing various food resources ranging from ciliates to vertebrates, and can thus avoid competition with other species, there are also additional pathways through which it can affect the ecosystem: Amur sleeper can efficiently escape predation (Kati et al, 2015) making it more resilient than some of its competitors while at the same time it can transmit diseases to other species (Kvach et al, 2020; Pupins et al, 2023). As a generalist intermediate consumer, Amur sleeper can cause significant and hard‐to‐predict top‐down and bottom‐up effects in ecosystems it invades (Reshetnikov, 2013).…”