Testing for deterministic succession in metazoan parasite communities of marine fish

Abstract

Parasite communities are similar to free‐living communities; decay of similarity over geographic distance, theory of island biogeography, species–area relationships and nestedness have been documented in both communities. Ecological succession has been studied in free‐living communities but has rarely been examined in parasite communities. We use seriation with replication to test the hypothesis that succession of parasite community structure is deterministic, thus developing throughout consecutive changes along the fish ontogeny, via a seriated pattern. 12 306 marine fishes (95 species) were studied. In 40 species, a seriated pattern was detected; 25 had a tendency towards a seriated pattern, and for 31 species, succession was at random. Age‐classes for each host species explained deterministic successional patterns for whole parasite communities and ectoparasites. Richness and number of age‐classes explained this pattern for endoparasites. Seriated successional pattern was evident for parasite communities of long‐lived marine fish, indicating that parasite communities follow sequential changes over time, like many free‐living communities.

Assembly rules of helminth parasite communities in grey mullets: combining components of diversity

“…However, it has been recently shown that α TD of parasite communities is determined by host age-class like an ecological succession of communities of free-living organisms. Thus, if hosts of different age-classes were analysed together it could mask an actual deterministic pattern of parasite community assemblage (Espínola-Novelo et al, 2020). Nonetheless, we consider that this is not a likely scenario in this study since parasite communities were mainly sampled from fish of two consecutive age-classes out of nine (classes 3 and 4 according to those described for M. cephalus in Espínola-Novelo et al, 2020).…”

Parasitic load of the Pacific mackerel, Scomber japonicus (Pisces: Scombridae) from Northwestern Baja California, Mexico

“…On the other hand, the fish sampled during the two sample times were possibly a heterogeneous group of ages (1 to 3 years) with lengths ranging from 20 to 30 cm according to those reported by Knaggs & Parrish (1973) and Schaefer (1980) . Espínola-Novelo et al . 2020 indicated that a seriated pattern of succession was detected in host species with a higher number of age-classes, which increased the probability of obtaining a more accurate estimate of the total number of parasite species that one host species can harbor along their ontogeny.…”

Estructura comunitaria de metazoos parásitos en la doncella Hemanthias peruanus (Serranidae) del norte de Perú

“…Este es el primer estudio de aspecto ecológico en la fauna parasitaria de H. peruanus. Finalmente, los autores incentivan a seguir aportando con estudios ecológicos de la fauna parasitaria de H. peruanus para determinar si las poblaciones de parásitos tienden a una sucesión secuencial a lo largo del tiempo o una sucesión aleatoria (38).…”