Isopods Cymothoidae ectoparasites of fish from the Amazon

Abstract

Most freshwater species of Cymothoidae are distributed in South America. They have mainly been recorded in the eastern and western regions of the Amazon River basin. However, in this ecosystem, the biodiversity of this group may be greater if the entire Amazon basin is considered. In this regard, the aim of the present study was to provide an updated list of isopod species of the family Cymothoidae that are found in fish in the Brazilian Amazon region and to report on new fish host occurrences and expanded geographical distributions for cymothoid isopods that parasitize fish in the southwestern Brazilian Amazon region. The parasites found in fish specimens were collected, fixed and identified later. We found eight species of Cymothoidae parasitizing different host fish species in the southwestern Amazon region. However, we found 14 species of Cymothoidae throughout the Brazilian Amazon region. Three additional species are thus reported here, which increases the number of species of Cymothoidae in this region to 17. These additional species are also new records for Brazil. Therefore, this study has contribute to expand the knowledge about the distribution and diversity of Cymothoidae in the Amazon basin.

Effect of burrowing cymothoid parasitism on loricariids

“…In the marine environment, the literature on the taxonomy and ecology of cymothoids is broad, as is the knowledge on the distribution of cymothoid species and their hosts, as well as the effect of parasite-host interactions on both cymothoids and host fish ( Smit et al, 2014 ; Pawluk et al, 2015 ; Welicky et al, 2015 , 2017 , 2018 ). In freshwater environments, in-depth studies are few, temporally spaced, and mainly focused on records of the occurrence of the parasitism, with little information on the interaction itself, which is slowly advancing ( Thatcher, 2006 ; Luque et al, 2013 ; Rosa et al, 2020 ; Virgilio et al, 2020 ).…”