Occurrence of Anisakid Nematodes in Walleye Pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus) Caught off the East Sea of Korea: Their Molecular Identification and Biological Implication

Abstract

Walleye pollock (Gadus chalcogrammus) is one of the popular fish species in Korea and known to frequently harbor anisakid nematodes. Despite many papers regarding walleye pollock having been published, there is no information on the prevalence and distribution of anisakid nematodes from walleye pollock in Korean waters. We investigated 716 walleye pollock caught from Goseong, the East Sea of the Korean Peninsula during May 2015–December 2016. In total, 1,085 nematodes were collected and subsequently identified by PCR-RFLP analysis of internal transcribed spacer region of ribosomal DNA. The prevalence and mean intensity of anisakid nematodes was 63.6% (68/107) and 4.4 larvae/fish (297/68) in samples of 2015, and 21.5% (131/609) and 6.0 larvae/fish (788/131) in samples of 2016. The most abundantly isolated anisakid nematode was Anisakis simplex (Rudolphi, 1809) (73.5%, 798/1,085), followed by Contracaecum osculatum (Rudolphi, 1802) (3.1%, 34/1,085), Hysterothylacium aduncum (Rudolphi, 1802) (2.9%, 31/1,085), Anisakis pegreffii (Campana-Rouget and Biocca, 1955) (1.4%, 15/1,085), and a hybrid genotype (0.4%, 4/ 1,085). The mitochondrial DNA cox2 gene sequences of randomly selected A. simplex showed the highest similarity (99.5%–98.8%) with those from chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus) in Japan or from chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) in Korea. The mtDNA cox2 gene sequences of C. osculatum showed the highest similarity (99.0%) with those from bearded seals in Japan. All of these results give us clues to the geographical distribution, migration route and prey items of walleye pollock caught off Korea. Further extensive analyses will be necessary to get more information on the biology of Korean walleye pollock.