Abstract
PurposeFish parasites can cause diseases in humans and lead to commercial losses in fisheries and aquaculture. The objectives of this study were to analyze E. ongus’s parasite fauna regarding food safety and parasite transmission risk between Epinephelus species and test whether E.ongus populations can be distinguished by their parasite community.MethodsWe studied the metazoan parasite fauna of 30 white-streaked groupers Epinephelus ongus from the Thousand Islands, Java Sea, Indonesia, and compared the parasite community with specimens from Karimunjawa archipelago, Java Sea, from a former study. We used common fish parasitological methods for fish examination and parasite calculations.ResultsWe found 12 metazoan parasite species, establishing five new host and five new locality records, increasing the known parasite fauna of E. ongus by 21%. No anisakid worms infected E. ongus. All but one (trematode Gyliauchen cf. nahaensis) species have been previously reported from Epinephelus. Parasite abundance of E. ongus differed significantly between the two regions.ConclusionsDue to a certain degree of host specificity to groupers, there is potential risk of parasite transmission from E. ongus into groupers in mariculture or surrounding fishes, which increases (sea) food security related health risks from zoonotic parasites and calls for better monitoring and management plans for E. ongus. The regional separation of the Thousand Islands and Karimunjawa with different food availability and fish ecology causes different parasite abundances, distinguishing two separate E. ongus populations by their parasite fauna.
Highlights
With more than 17, 000 islands and 80, 791 km coastline, Indonesia is the biggest archipelago in the world [1]
Five new host and five new locality records were established, with the digeneans Cainocreadium epinepheli and Prosorhynchus sp., the nematode Philometra sp. and the copepod Caligus acanthopagri reported for the first time from E. ongus and the digenean Gyliauchen cf. nahaensis for the first time in Epinephelus
The present study suggests that the parasite fauna of the small-sized white-streaked grouper has less species diversity compared to its larger sized cogeners
Summary
With more than 17, 000 islands and 80, 791 km coastline, Indonesia is the biggest archipelago in the world [1]. In 2016, behind China, Indonesia ranked second in marine capture production with over 6 million tons [3]. Grouper (Serranidae: Epinephelinae) fisheries is of high economic value for food supply and the live reef fish trade in Indonesia, where they are mainly exported to China, Japan and Singapore [4]. Serranids contribute to stable livelihoods in developing countries and are important for reef ecosystems as (top) predators [5, 6]. It is estimated that 19 grouper species are threatened and especially the live reef food fish trade remains largely unmanaged [7, 8]. Further knowledge on the ecology and life history of these commercially important species is needed to predict future implications of increasingly high fishing pressure
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