Interannual variation in the metazoan parasite communities of bigeye trevally Caranx sexfasciatus (Pisces, Carangidae).

Juan Violante-González,Scott Monks,Nataly G Santos-Bustos,Jesús G Padilla-Serrato,Princessa J Villalba-Vasquez,Griselda Pulido-Flores,Yesenia Gallegos-Navarro

doi:10.1051/parasite/2020001

Abstract

Parasite communities in Caranx sexfasciatus were characterized and analyzed to determine any interannual variations in structure and/or species composition. In total, 422 C. sexfasciatus were collected from Acapulco Bay, Mexico, between May 2016 and March 2019. Thirty-two taxa of metazoan parasites were identified: five Monogenea, thirteen Digenea, one Acanthocephala, one Cestoda, three Nematoda, seven Copepoda, and two Isopoda. Monogeneans were the most frequent and abundant parasite species in all sampling years. Parasite species richness at the component community level varied significantly from 8 (May 2016) to 25 (March 2019) and was similar to previous reports for other species of Carangidae. The component communities and infracommunities in C. sexfasciatus were characterized by low parasite species numbers, low diversity, and dominance of a single species (the monogenean Neomicrocotyle pacifica). Parasite community structure and species composition varied between sampling years and climatic seasons. Seasonal or local fluctuations in some biotic and abiotic environmental factors probably explain these variations.

Highlights

Parasite communities in marine fish consist of ectoparasites and endoparasites
Some studies suggest that the infection levels of most parasite species do not experience significant changes over time, and that communities tend to be generally stable in species composition for long periods of time [4, 12, 16, 43]
Thirty-two taxa of metazoan parasites (23 of helminths and nine of Crustacea) were recovered and identified (9866 individual parasites) from 422 individuals of C. sexfasciatus collected from Acapulco Bay, Mexico

Summary

Introduction

Parasite communities in marine fish consist of ectoparasites (monogeneans, copepods, and isopods) and endoparasites (digeneans, cestodes, nematodes, and acanthocephalans). Both types of parasite exhibit different transmission strategies to infect their hosts; for example, ectoparasites are often transmitted. Spatial or temporal variation in community structure may indicate how important local environmental factors (abiotic and biotic conditions) are in structuring a parasite community, when disparities are found between different host species [1, 24, 46, 50, 53]. Others indicate that even though parasite species composition may be relatively stable over time, a community can undergo substantial changes in structure due to variations in local environmental factors [14, 39, 51]

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