The communities of helminth parasites ofHeterandria bimaculata(Teleostei: Poeciliidae) from the upper Río La Antigua basin, east-central Mexico show a predictable structure

Abstract

We investigated a basic generalization in parasite community ecology stating that stochastic processes played a major part in determining the composition of helminth communities of freshwater fish, or on the contrary, if these communities are predictable, diverse and structured species assemblages. We determined the species pool of helminth parasites of a tropical freshwater fish Heterandria bimaculata in its heartland, the upper Río La Antigua basin in east-central Mexico. Approaching our data from the metapopulation standpoint we studied the spatial patterns, and examined the variation in composition and richness of the component communities across different locations. We tested the prediction that helminth species may be recognized as common or rare; and also two hypotheses anticipating depauperate communities and decay of similarity between component communities with increasing distance. We found these communities composed by a highly structured and predictable set of specialist autogenic helminth species that are constant and abundant, dominating all components throughout space. The prediction that it is possible to recognize common and rare species was met. Richer than expected communities were found, as well as highly homogeneous component communities, where neighbouring components were more similar than distant ones. We speculated that the processes shaping the development of these component communities include stable, predictable habitats through time, allowing for a slow gradual dispersion process limited by host and parasite species capabilities. Our study suggests that metapopulation theory can assist in the prediction of community composition and in the understanding of spatial and temporal community variability.

Host specificity and the structure of helminth parasite communities of fishes in a Neotropical river in Mexico

“…Com.). Interestingly and significantly there is empirical evidence that tropical fishes do have a range of autogenic specialists which explains high degrees of similarity between localities [34]. However, a metacommunity study of helminth parasites of eels in the River Exe system [16] also demonstrated the presence of a range of autogenic specialists which, in this case, did not confer similarity between localities.…”

“…However, a metacommunity study of helminth parasites of eels in the River Exe system [16] also demonstrated the presence of a range of autogenic specialists which, in this case, did not confer similarity between localities. The difference seems to be the role of the acanthocephalans that tend to dominate freshwater fish parasite communities at northern temperate latitudes [16, 17] and that are very uncommon and generally occur at low prevalence and abundance levels, and certainly do not dominate tropical assemblages [34 and present work].…”

“…Fish were captured using an electrofishing device, transported live to the laboratory and immediately examined for helminths, within 24 h post capture. Tissues and organs of every single fish were searched for helminths under stereomicroscopes [see 34]. Two kinds of data were collected from each individual fish: the number of helminth species in each fish and the number of helminth individuals per helminth species (the abundance distribution).…”

Competition from sea to mountain: Interactions and aggregation in low‐diversity monogenean and endohelminth communities in twospot livebearerPseudoxiphophorus bimaculatus(Teleostei: Poeciliidae) populations in a neotropical river

“…Our goal was to explore the factors that might contribute to the richness and coexistence of helminth parasites of P. bimaculatus across 11 localities in the La Antigua River, a neotropical system in Veracruz, Mexico. Populations of the poeciliid P. bimaculatus in the La Antigua River were chosen for the present study because some aspects of their parasite community structure have been described previously, including information on common and rare species (Salgado-Maldonado et al, 2014); however, information on community saturation, intraspecific and interspecific aggregation, and consistency of pairwise species associations is limited.…”

Helminth parasites of Xiphophorus birchmanni (Pisces: Poeciliidae) from two localities of the Pánuco River drainage, Mexico

“…Urocleidoides vaginoclaustrum was originally described from introduced aquarium fish X. hellerii in India; however, recently studies had been expanded its distribution to others hosts in Mexican drainages. So far, it has been found infecting mainly poeciliids, such as, X. hellerii (Mendoza-Franco et al, 2015;Mendoza-Palmero & Aguilar-Aguilar, 2008), Pseudoxiphophorus bimaculata (Salgado-Maldonado et al, 2014), X. malinche and X. birchmanni (present work), but recently it had been recorded from the profundulid Profundulus labialis (Mendoza-Franco et al, 2015).…”