Abstract
This study aimed to describe the diversity of fish parasites in the Amambai River, in the Mato Grosso do Sul State, and generate information to facilitate studies of the biotic integrity of the region. During the period of September 2015 and July 2015, 48 specimens of 11 species of fish were analyzed for parasites. A total of 56.25% of the fish sampled from the Amambai River were infected with one or more metazoan species. A total of 21,514 parasite specimens belonging to 24 different species we found; they were distributed among six groups: Acanthocephala (Neoechinorhynchida), Cestoda (Proteocephalidea), Crustacea (Ergasilidae), Digenea (Cladorchiidae, Dadaytrema ), Monogenea (Dactylogyridae) and Nematoda (Atractidae, Cucullanidae, Camallanidae, Rhabdochonidae). Of these, a monogenean, Mymarothecium sp. and four nematodes – Cucullanus sp.; Procamallanus ( Spirocamallanus ) inopinatus Travassos, Artigas, and Pereira, 1928; Rabdochona acuminate (Molin, 1860); and Rondonia rondoni Travassos, 1920 – were recorded for the first time on new hosts. This is the first work to gather information about the parasite fauna of fish from Amambai River in the Mato Grosso do Sul State, and provides records that contribute new reports of the occurrence of parasites in new locations.
Highlights
The continental waters of Brazil possess great species richness and diversity of living organisms, including parasites of natural fish populations (Agostinho, Thomaz, & Gomes, 2005)
Forty-eight fish of 11 species were collected from the Amambai River for analysis: Salminus brasiliensis Cuvier, 1816 (n = 5), Salminus hilarii Valenciennes, 1850 (n = 1), Serrasalmus marginatus Valenciennes, 1837 (n = 3), Raphiodon vulpinus Spix and Agassiz, 1829 (n = 2), Schizodon borelli (Boulenger, 1900) (n = 3), Prochilodus lineatus Valenciennes, 1837 (n = 16), Sorubim lima (Bloch & Schneider, 1801) (n = 1), Pseudoplatystoma corruscans (Spix & Agassiz, 1829) (n = 3), Auchenipterus osteomystax (Ribeiro, 1918) (n = 1), Pterodoras granulosus Valenciennes, 1840 (n = 4) and Pterygoplichthys ambroseti (Holmberg, 1893) (n = 9)
70.3% were parasitized by ectoparasites, 51.8% by endoparasites and 29.6% by both
Summary
The continental waters of Brazil possess great species richness and diversity of living organisms, including parasites of natural fish populations (Agostinho, Thomaz, & Gomes, 2005). Parasites are components of most ecosystems and are involved in numerous food webs and all trophic levels. Most vertebrate species serve as a host of one or more parasite species (Lagrue, Kelly, Hicks, & Poulin, 2011). Fish have the highest rates of infection by parasites because of the unique characteristics of their aquatic environment, which facilitate the spread, reproduction and life-cycle completion of each parasite group. The parasite fauna of freshwater fish can vary in composition depending on the host species, its level in the food chain, the age, size and sex of individual. Biological Sciences, v. 40, e36330, 2018 fish, and other biotic and abiotic factors (Takemoto & Lizama, 2010)
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