Diversity of parasites of fish from the Upper Paraná River floodplain, Brazil

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to provide a current survey of the species of parasites found in the Upper Paraná River floodplain, as well as to investigate which strategies and mechanisms used by parasites, are favored and which environmental factors influence the parasite community in the studied environments. During a seven-year period from February 2000 to September 2007, 3,768 fish belonging to 72 species were collected and analyzed for the purpose of studying the parasite fauna. A total of 337 species of parasites were reported, including 12 new descriptions: one myxosporid, Henneguya paranaensis Eiras, Pavanelli and Takemoto Keywords: ichthyoparasites, biodiversity, helminthes, crustaceans, parasite ecology. Diversidade dos parasitos de peixes da planície de inundação do Alto Rio Paraná, BrasilResumo O objetivo do presente trabalho foi realizar um novo levantamento das espécies de parasitos encontradas na planície de inundação do Alto Rio Paraná, bem como investigar quais estratégias e mecanismos utilizados pelos parasitos são mais favorecidos e quais fatores ambientais estão influenciando a comunidade parasitária nos ambientes estudados.

Parasite diversity in Oxydoras niger (Osteichthyes: Doradidae) from the basin of Solimões River, Amazonas state, Brazil, and the relationship between monogenoidean and condition factor

“…These studies can indicate the fish food habit, as has been reported by Machado et al (1996), Takemoto et al (2004Takemoto et al ( , 2009 and Martins et al (2009). Piscivorous fish occupy the top of the food web and may present more chance of infection (Machado et al, 1996;Martins et al, 2009), while omnivorous fish present lower risks of infection by the fact that they are primary consumers in the food web (Feltran et al, 2004;Takemoto et al (2009).…”

“…An important characteristic of the monogenoideans is that of their host specificity (Takemoto et al, , 2009Thatcher, 2006), also serving as a taxonomic indicator. Parasites of the genus Cosmetocleithrum are mostly found in Siluriformes fish (Krytisky et al, 1986), mainly Doradidae and Pimelodidae (Suriano and Incorvaia, 1995;Thatcher, 2006).…”

“…Fish may present a great diversity of parasites which depend on the fish species, food habit, temperature, climate and rainfall (Martins et al, 2009;Takemoto et al, 2009). They act as a host for a large number of parasites with varied strategies in their life-cycle.…”

“…Consequently, studies on fish parasitology are needed to improve the knowledge of the relationships between host and parasites Takemoto et al, 2004Takemoto et al, , 2009Martins et al, 2009). These studies can indicate the fish food habit, as has been reported by Machado et al (1996), Takemoto et al (2004Takemoto et al ( , 2009 and Martins et al (2009).…”

The helminth community ofGeophagus proximus(Perciformes: Cichlidae) from a tributary of the Paraná River, Ilha Solteira Reservoir, São Paulo State, Brazil

“…In Brazil, A. compactum metacercariae have been reported in several fish species (Santos et al, 2002;Machado et al, 2005;Yamada et al, 2008;Takemoto et al, 2009;Zica et al, 2009Zica et al, , 2011Paes et al, 2010a, b), and were recently found in G. proximus from the Nova Avanhandava Reservoir, Medium Tietê River, Brazil (Zica et al, 2010). In the present study, the prevalence of A. compactum in G. proximus was lower than that found by Zica et al (2010).…”