SPATIAL STRUCTURE OF HELMINTH COMMUNITIES IN THE GOLDEN GREY MULLET, LIZA AURATA (ACTINOPTERYGII: MUGILIDAE), FROM THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN

0387485 - BC 2013 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Míguez-Lozano, R. - Pardo-Carranza, T.V. - Blasco-Costa, Maria Isabel - Balbuena, J. A.
SPATIAL STRUCTURE OF HELMINTH COMMUNITIES IN THE GOLDEN GREY MULLET, LIZA AURATA (ACTINOPTERYGII: MUGILIDAE), FROM THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN.
Journal of Parasitology. Roč. 98, č. 5 (2012), s. 904-912. ISSN 0022-3395. E-ISSN 1937-2345
Institutional support: RVO:60077344
Keywords : 1914 DIGENEA HAPLOPORIDAE * PARASITE SPECIES RICHNESS * N. SP MONOGENEA * MARINE FISHES * ENVIRONMENTAL COMPONENTS * LIGOPHORUS MONOGENEA * SATURNIUS MANTER * BETA DIVERSITY * DISTANCE DECAY * BLACK-SEA
Subject RIV: EH - Ecology, Behaviour
Impact factor: 1.321, year: 2012
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1645/GE-2897.1#fn2

The present study provides a detailed description of the helminth communities of Liza aurata in the Spanish western Mediterranean and analyzes the role of spatial, temporal, and host variables in shaping the infracommunities. In total, 204 fish were collected in 2 localities, situated ca. 290 km apart, in spring and fall of 2004 and 2005. A non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) was used to visualize an ordination of the infracommunities according to their relative similarities in parasite abundances. The relationship between infracommunity composition and explanatory variables (host size, locality, year, and season of harvest) was examined by permutational analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) applied to species abundances. Permutational tests for homogeneity of multivariate dispersion were used to test the null hypothesis of no differences in dispersion among groups formed by the factors whose effects were significant in PERMANOVA. A total of 33,241 helminth parasites, belonging to 18 species, was collected, i.e., 12 species of adult digeneans (23% of the parasite specimens), 3 digeneans as metacercariae (68%), 1 acanthocephalan (2.1%), and 2 monogeneans (6.5%). An important part of this helminth fauna is specialized to grey mullets, with a sizable portion of the component community restricted to the Mediterranean and northeast Atlantic. The NMDS ordination indicated high heterogeneity among infrapopulations. However, most differences at both the component and infracommunity level were related to geographic locality. In fact, the PERMANOVA showed that, among the explanatory variables considered, sampling locality accounted for the largest share of variation. The geographical differences observed may be related to local environmental characteristics or to the limited spatial dispersal of the species forming the component community. The latter was supported by the significant portion of variation explained by a 3-way interaction term.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0216572