Abstract
In this paper, we analyse the distributional patterns of adult helminth parasites of freshwater fishes with respect to the main hydrological basins of Mexico. We use the taxonomic distinctness and the variation in taxonomic distinctness to explore patterns of parasite diversity and how these patterns change between zoogeographical regions. We address questions about the factors that determine the variation of observed diversity of helminths between basins. We also investigate patterns of richness, taxonomic distinctness and distance decay of similarity amongst basins. Our analyses suggest that the evolution of the fauna of helminth parasites in Mexico is mostly dominated by independent host colonization events and that intra - host speciation could be a minor factor explaining the origin of this diversity. This paper points out a clear separation between the helminth faunas of northern - nearctic and southern - neotropical components in Mexican continental waters, suggesting the availability of two distinct taxonomic pools of parasites in Mexican drainage basins. Data identifies Mexican drainage basins as unities inhabited by freshwater fishes, hosting a mixture of neotropical and nearctic species, in addition, data confirms neotropical and neartic basins/helminth faunas. The neotropical basins of Mexico are host to a richest and more diversified helminth fauna, including more families, genera and species, compared to the less rich and less diverse helminth fauna in the nearctic basins. The present analysis confirms distance - decay as one of the important factors contributing to the patterns of diversity observed. The hypothesis that helminth diversity could be explained by the ichthyological diversity of the basin received no support from present analysis.
Highlights
The fauna of helminth parasites of freshwater fishes of Mexico is one of the best known in Latin America [1], with more than 260 helminth species recorded [2], the knowledge of helminthofauna that parasitizes freshwater fishes of Mexico has greatly increased in recent times [2,3,4]
We explore patterns of parasite diversity observed between biogeographic regions of Mexico seeking patterns of diversity amongst 23 Mexican major hydrological basins, using the adult helminth parasites of freshwater fishes to typify each basin
The estimated D+ values resulting from the helminth species list in each of the 23 Mexican freshwater basins, plotted against the number of species in each basin, are shown in Fig. 3, superimposed on the 95% funnel for the simulated distribution of D+ for subsets of fixed number of species drawn randomly from the 180 helminth species of freshwater fishes of Mexico
Summary
The fauna of helminth parasites of freshwater fishes of Mexico is one of the best known in Latin America [1], with more than 260 helminth species recorded [2], the knowledge of helminthofauna that parasitizes freshwater fishes of Mexico has greatly increased in recent times [2,3,4]. Through the analysis of the taxonomic composition and richness of helminth species of fish in 23 drainage basins from Mexico, Quiroz-Martınez & SalgadoMaldonado [5] showed that basins can be characterised by the helminth fauna parasitizing freshwater fishes, in the same way as the hosts themselves characterise these basins. This analysis helped identify the variation in helminth diversity between basins of Mexico; different drainage basins harbour different numbers of parasite species, though the reasons why have yet to be examined. There are families of fish with high richness of helminths, while other families are less parasitized [3], this explains why basins that host fish families rich in parasites or that host more fish families are the richest basins in terms of helminth parasites
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