Abstract
Scorpaena brasiliensis and S. plumieri are relevant fish species in reef systems, but little is known about their parasitic helminth communities and their structure. This paper describes such community in terms of species richness and diversity. A helminthological study was conducted on 33 specimens of S. brasiliensis and 36 S. plumieri, captured in the Pajaros and Cabezo Reefs, in the Veracruz Reef System National Park (VRSNP), Veracruz, Mexico. The helminth community structure was analyzed in both host species. A total of 10 parasitic species was registered in S. brasiliensis (5 digeneans, 1 cestode, 3 nematodes, 1 acanthocephalan), while S. plumieri hosted 11 species (4 digeneans, 1 monogenean, 1 cestode, 4 nematodes, 1 acanthocephalan), with 8 common species. The species with the highest prevalence were Pseudocapillaria (Icthyocapillaria) sp., with 18.2% and 19.4% in S. brasiliensis and S. plumieri, respectively. Component community richness for S. brasiliensis was S = 10, with Shannon index diversity value of H’ = 2.08. For S. plumieri, such values were of S = 11 and H’ = 1.91. Richness and diversity in the component and infracommunity levels for both hosts are lower than in other parasite communities of marine fishes in the southern Gulf of Mexico.
Highlights
Scorpenid fish are associated to rocky substrates and reef formations in the West Atlantic Ocean, and are distributed from the US to Brazil, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea (Smith-Vaniz et al, 1999)
In this report we describe the helminth community of S. brasiliensis and S. plumieri, in terms of species richness and diversity
The value of the nonparametric species-richness estimator bootstrap (S. brasiliensis, Sb = 9; S. plumieri, Sb = 13) confirms that most, if not all, helminth species from the component community were recovered from both host species
Summary
Scorpenid fish are associated to rocky substrates and reef formations in the West Atlantic Ocean, and are distributed from the US to Brazil, including the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea (Smith-Vaniz et al, 1999). In S. inermis; B. scorpaenae, H. nimia, S. floridensis in S. plumieri, all from Florida, USA (Manter, 1947); B. scorpaenae in S. plumieri from Louisiana, USA (Corkum, 1967); Lecithochirium parvum and L. microcercus in S. plumieri from Puerto Rico (Dyer et al, 1985); H. nimia in S. plumieri from Puerto Rico (Siddiqi & Cable, 1960) and Brazil (Travassos et al, 1967; Roumbedakis et al, 2014); Pseudopecoelus scorpaenae in S. plumieri from Mexico (Pérez-Ponce de León et al, 2007). Little is known about the community structure of helminth parasites in these hosts, as compared to other marine fish, such as carangids and lutjanids from the Southern Gulf of Mexico (Montoya-Mendoza et al, 2014, 2016, 2017a), or other commercially relevant species from the Caribbean region (Aguirre-Macedo et al, 2007). In this report we describe the helminth community of S. brasiliensis and S. plumieri, in terms of species richness and diversity
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