Abstract
In order to draw patterns in helminth parasite composition and species richness in Mexican freshwater fishes we analyse a presence-absence matrix representing every species of adult helminth parasites of freshwater fishes from 23 Mexican hydrological basins. We examine the distributional patterns of the helminth parasites with regard to the main hydrological basins of the country, and in doing so we identify areas of high diversity and point out the biotic similarities and differences among drainage basins. Our dataset allows us to evaluate the relationships among drainage basins in terms of helminth diversity. This paper shows that the helminth fauna of freshwater fishes of Mexico can characterise hydrological basins the same way as fish families do, and that the basins of south-eastern Mexico are home to a rich, predominantly Neotropical, helminth fauna whereas the basins of the Mexican Highland Plateau and the Nearctic area of Mexico harbour a less diverse Nearctic fauna, following the same pattern of distribution of their fish host families. The composition of the helminth fauna of each particular basin depends on the structure of the fish community rather than on the limnological characteristics and geographical position of the basin itself. This work shows distance decay of similarity and a clear linkage between host and parasite distributions.
Highlights
The helminth parasite fauna of freshwater fish of Mexico ranks amongst the best characterised parasite faunas in Latin America [1] but no biogeographic synthesis of this group exists
Most of the species correspond to helminth parasites of Cichlidae (S = 40 helminth species), Characidae (S = 19), Heptapteridae (S = 14), Ictaluridae (S = 13), and Poeciliidae (S = 11), 15 species of generalist helminths previously recorded from several families of freshwater fishes from North America north of Mexico, have been recorded parasitizing fishes from Northern Mexico basins
Twenty of the 170 helminth species were recovered from 5 to 12 river basins (Table S1), these are the most widely distributed helminth species in the freshwater fishes of Mexico.The introduced Asian fish tapeworm Bothriocephalus acheilognathi Yamaguti, 1934 (Cestoda) that was found in 12 river basins [21]
Summary
The helminth parasite fauna of freshwater fish of Mexico ranks amongst the best characterised parasite faunas in Latin America [1] but no biogeographic synthesis of this group exists. During the past decade our knowledge of helminth parasites of freshwater fishes of Mexico has increased dramatically. Previous attempts to synthesise distributional data on a broad scale [3,4,5,6,7] are updated as new data has become available, new taxa have been described [8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15] and recent survey works have been published [16,17,18].
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