Parasitic communities of Hoplosternum littorale (Hancock, 1828) as indicators of environmental impact

Abstract

The parasites are indicative of several biological aspects of their hosts, including their diet, migration, recruitment and phylogeny, but they can also be direct indicators of the environmental quality. Hoplosternum littorale is a fish that has a high commercial value in some South American countries. The fishes were collected from January to July 2012, in two locations of the Peixe River in the municipality of Anhembi, State of São Paulo, Brazil, which had different environmental and limnological characteristics (river mouth and Lagoa Cabeça de Boi). An amount of 30 fish specimens were captured in each location for the analysis of their parasitic fauna. Nine species of metazoan parasites were collected. Both Brillouin`s diversity index and Margalef`s richness index were greater in the Lagoa Cabeça de Boi. The ratio of heteroxenous and monoxenous parasite species richness (S H /S M ) was higher in the Lagoa Cabeça de Boi. The results of the physicochemical analysis of the water showed that the mouth of the Peixe River can be considered an area that suffers more from anthropogenic actions than the Lagoa da Cabeça de Boi. Proteocephalus sp., Gyrodactylus sp., Scleroductus sp. and Capillaria (Neocapillaria) pterophylli are being registered for the first time in this host.

PARASITE DIVERSITY OF <i>Hoplosternum littorale</i> FROM THE TIETí­Å -BATALHA RIVER BASIN, SOUTHEASTERN BRAZIL

“…The composition is also quite different. Abdallah et al (2006) in the Guandu River, RJ, registered eight species, and all were different from those found in the present study, while Dias et al (2017) in a study conducted in Peixe River, SP, found only nine species and four of these were common to those found in the present study. This variation may be linked to the environmental integrity conditions of each location, as well as the presence of intermediate and/or final hosts responsible for the perpetuation of the life cycles of the heteroxene parasites (Luque and Poulin, 2007).…”

“…Studies on parasitic fauna in natural populations of H. littorale have been carried out by several authors (Torres et al, 1994;São Clemente et al, 1998;Abdallah et al, 2006Abdallah et al, , 2007Lacerda et al, 2009;Takemoto et al, 2009;Azevedo et al, 2010Azevedo et al, , 2011Fernandes et al, 2013;Pinheiro et al, 2013;Dias et al, 2017;Núñez et al, 2017;Baia et al, 2018;Vieira et al, 2019). Most of these studies were carried out in the Southeast region of Brazil.…”

Influência da estiagem e inundação na ocorrência de monogenéticos de Hoplias malabaricus (Bloch, 1794) em rios da Amazônia ocidental

“…Poucos estudos relacionaram os fatores ambientais com a fauna de monogenea (Palm 2011, Biswas & Pramanik 2016, Dias et al 2017, Leite et al 2018, Lima et al 2022, principalmente na região amazônica. Alguns estudos, também evidenciaram a influência do ciclo hidrológico na ocorrência de monogeneas em peixes (Graça et al 2013, Gonçalves et al 2016, Lehun et al 2022, Pala et al 2022, no qual alguns estudos verificaram que os períodos de inundação e estiagem podem aumentar ou diminuir a ocorrência de algumas espécies de monogenéticos .…”

Changes in land use affect anuran helminths in the South Brazilian grasslands

“…Helminths are indicative of many biological aspects of their hosts, including diet, habitat occupation and phylogeny, and may also be good direct indicators of environmental quality (Aguiar, 2014;Dias et al, 2017;Januário et al, 2019). Previous studies suggested that the environment is 'healthy' when hosts are exposed to a high diversity of helminths (Marcogliese, 2004(Marcogliese, , 2005Hudson et al, 2006).…”

“…Degradation and the loss of habitat negatively impact native species, since associated processes (such as habitat fragmentation) lead to a reduction in the local abundance of species, as well as increased isolation between populations. This affects ecological processes both at the level of populations and communities (Rathcke & Jules, 1993; Brunner & Eizaguirre, 2016; Di Marco et al ., 2017; Powers & Jetz, 2019). Among the organisms that suffer most from environmental changes are amphibians (Miguel et al ., 2007), which are considered sensitive to hydrological alterations, as well as air and water contamination by chemical agents and large-scale climatic variations (Vitt et al ., 1990; Egea-Serrano et al ., 2012; Pereyra et al ., 2018).…”