Abstract
A comparative analysis was carried out investigating the parasite faunas of coregonids (humpback whitefish, peled, least cisco, and tugun) from the Lower Ob Ural tributaries (Rivers Synya, Voykar, Severnaya Sos'va, Sob, Shchuch'ya) and from the Khatanga River. Surveys revealed 48 parasite species, most with a complex life cycle (29 helminth species and 3 myxosporidian species whose development involves benthic organisms). Semi-anadromous whitefish spawning in Lower Ob tributaries were shown to have a poorer species composition of parasites (13-16 species) compared to land-locked whitefish from the Khatanga (23 species). The parasite fauna of semi-anadromous peled from the Lower Ob had the most diverse species composition among the rest of coregonids, with relatively high similarity between the rivers Voykar and Synya, while that of the S. Sos'va River stood apart. Resident ecotypes of peled from the rivers Shchuch'ya and Khatanga were similar in the species composition of their parasites in spite of the substantially different geographical locations of the catchments. Least cisco within the Lower Ob basin (Rivers Voykar and Sob) featured a high similarity of the parasite species composition, which was, however, very different from that in least cisco from the Khatanga. Some freshwater parasites (infusorians, monogeneans, trematodes and leeches) apparently get lost in the brackish waters of Khatangsky Bay, while the crustacean Coregonicola orientalis is introduced into the river during the spawning run. The parasite fauna of tugun was the richest in the Khatanga (17 species), relatively poor in the Sob (5) and Shchuch'ya (6 species), and generally reflected the features of the fish ecology in each specific river.
Highlights
Coregonids are a group with exceptionally high plasticity, whose members actively colonize Arctic waters and form various ecotypes
The parasite fauna of humpback whitefish in the catchments under study was made up of 32 species
The parasite fauna of humpback whitefish in the Khatanga was more diverse (23 species)
Summary
Coregonids are a group with exceptionally high plasticity, whose members actively colonize Arctic waters and form various ecotypes (riverine semi-anadromous, lacustrine-riverine, lacustrine). The parasitе fauna of Siberian whitefishes began to be studied only in the second half of the previous century. Studies are few and largely fragmentary [Bauer, 1941; Petrushevsky et al, 1948; Lukyanchikov, Cherepanov, 1962; Titova, 1965]. Systematic studies have been conducted in recent decades [Gavrilov et al, 2013; Chugunova, Budin, 2018]. In this paper we aim to comparatively analyze the species diversity of parasites in coregonid fish from Lower Ob Arctic tributaries and from the Khatanga River, to look at the patterns of parasite species richness formation in resident and anadromous ecotypes
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