Abstract
One hundred and twenty-eight specimens of namorado sandperches, 62 P. numida and 66 P. semifasciata, collected between October 2002 and June 2003 off the Cabo Frio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (Lat 23 degrees S and Long 42 degrees W), were examined to study their metazoan parasites. Parasite communities of these fish were composed basically of endoparasites, mainly digenean and cestodes species, with low prevalence and abundance but having high parasite species richness values (at the component community level). Among these values, that found for P. numida is the highest so far recorded for marine fishes from the Neotropical Region. Thirty-nine species of metazoan parasites were collected: 36 from P. numida and 28 from P. semifasciata. Twenty-five parasite species were common to both species of namorado sandperches. Pseudopercis numida and P. semifasciata are new host records for all parasite species collected, with the exception of Microcotyle pseudopercis. Choanodera sp., Leurodera decora, Neolebouria georgenascimentoi, and Proctoeces sp. which were recorded for the first time in the South American Atlantic Ocean. Gnathia sp. from P. numida and Scolex pleuronectis from P. semifasciata were the species having the greatest dominance frequency. Parasite abundance in P. numida and P. semifasciata were positively correlated with the host total length. Only in P. numida was parasite species richness correlated positively with the host total length. No significant differences between endoparasite infracommunities of P. numida and P. semifasciata were detected. The ectoparasites of P. numida had higher values for parasite abundance, parasite richness, Brillouin index, evenness index, and Berger-Parker index than those of the ectoparasites of P. semifasciata. Comparisons among all ecto- and endoparasites showed the ectoparasites of P. numida as the most heterogeneous group. Low similarity values were observed among the three types of parasite infracommunities of the two hosts.
Highlights
In the past two decades, several studies have focused on characteristics of the parasite communities of Neotropical marine fishes
The known geographical distribution of P. numida is restricted to southern Brazil from Rio de Janeiro to the State of Santa Catarina, while P. semifasciata is distributed from the State of São Paulo (Brazil) to the Gulf of San Jorge (Argentina) (Menezes and Figueiredo, 1985)
Pseudopercis numida and P. semifasciata are new host records for all species collected with the exception of Microcotyle pseudopercis
Summary
In the past two decades, several studies have focused on characteristics of the parasite communities of Neotropical marine fishes. Some of them included descriptive characteristics of the infracommunities (Luque, 2004) and, recently, other studies have appeared on biodiversity and component communities (Luque and Poulin, 2004; Luque et al, 2004) in the Brazilian marine fishes These studies are apparently insufficient in view of the high fish species biodiversity of the region and possible participation of these species in complex marine food webs. The namorado sandperches, Pseudopercis numida Miranda-Ribeiro, 1903 and P. semifasciata (Cuvier, 1829) are demersal non-migratory fishes found on rocky and sandy bottoms in coastal waters These species are considered euryphagous predators, feeding mainly on benthic fishes and crustaceans (Menezes and Figueiredo, 1985; Elías and Rajoy, 1992; Froese and Pouly, 2005). Some records mention the presence of P. semifasciata in the State of Rio de Janeiro (Froese and Pauly, 2007)
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