Helminth Parasites of Scorpaena brasiliensis and S. plumieri (Perciformes: Scorpaenidae) from reefs of Veracruz, Mexico, Southern Gulf of Mexico
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ecology, Parasitology
- Keywords
- richness, diversity, infracommunity, component community
- Copyright
- © 2018 Montoya-Mendoza et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2018. Helminth Parasites of Scorpaena brasiliensis and S. plumieri (Perciformes: Scorpaenidae) from reefs of Veracruz, Mexico, Southern Gulf of Mexico. PeerJ Preprints 6:e26694v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.26694v1
Abstract
Both S. brasiliensis and S. plumieri are relevant species in reef systems, but little is known about their parasitic helminths and community structure. This work describes such community in terms of species richness and diversity. A helminthological study was conducted on 33 specimens of S. brasiliensis and 36 of S. plumieri, captured in the Pájaros and Cabezo Reefs, in the Veracruz Reef System National Park (VRSNP), Ver., Mexico. The helminth community structure was analyzed in both hosts. A total of 10 parasitic species was registered for S. brasiliensis (trematodes, 5; nematodes, 3; cestodes, 1; acanthocephals, 1). S. plumieri hosted 11 species (trematodes, 4; nematodes, 4; monogeneans, 1; cestodes, 1; acanthocephals, 1), with 8 common species. Overall, parasites had prevalences < 20%, as Pseudocapillaria (Icthyocapillaria) sp., with 18.2% and 19.4% in S. brasiliensis and S. plumieri, respectively. Community component richness for S. brasiliensis was S=10, with Shannon index diversity value of H’=2.08. For S. plumieri, such values were of S=11 and H’=1.91. The richness and diversity in the components community and infracommunity of parasitic helminths for both hosts are lower than in other parasite community of marine fish Southern Gulf of Mexico.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
Data raw parasites scorpenids
Raw presence-absence data of parasite helminth species are presented for both host species