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Morphological and molecular evidence on the existence of a single estuarine and rocky intertidal acanthocephalan species of Profilicollis Meyer, 1931 (Acanthocephala: Polymorphidae) along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of southern South America

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Abstract

Profilicollis chasmagnathi Holcman-Spector, Mañé-Garzón & Dei-Cas, 1977 (Acanthocephala: Polymorphidae) has been reported to parasitise different grapsid species as intermediate hosts along the South Atlantic shores, i.e. Cyrtograpsus angulatus (Dana) and Neohelice granulata (Dana) in Uruguay and Cyrtograpsus altimanus (Rathbun) in Argentina. Larvae of a similar acanthocephalan described as Profilicollis antarcticus Zdzitowiecki, 1985 were recorded in the crab Hemigrapsus crenulatus (Milne-Edwards) from an estuarine habitat on the Southeast Pacific shore in Chile. Earlier studies have questioned the specific assignation of the Chilean estuarine populations of Profilicollis Meyer, 1931. The aim of this study was to re-examine the identification of these acanthocephalans by means of morphological and molecular analyses of cystacanths of Profilicollis spp. gathered from C. angulatus, N. granulata, C. altimanus and H. crenulatus. Our analyses showed that a single species of Profilicollis, P. chasmagnathi, parasitises these four crab species. The assessment of specimens from the South Shetlands Islands, the type-locality of P. antarcticus, is needed before formally proposing that P. antarcticus is a junior subjective synonym of P. chasmagnathi.

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Acknowledgement

We thank Kennia Morales for her assistance with the laboratory work.

Funding

This work was supported by Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (FONDECYT grant 1141055). SMR was supported by a CONICYT doctoral fellowship. JID is partially funded by PIP 0698 (CONICET) and N 758 (UNLP).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Programa de Doctorado en Biología Marina, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, campus Isla Teja s/n, Valdivia, Chile

    Sara M. Rodríguez

  2. Instituto de Ciencias Marinas y limnológicas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Isla Teja s/n, Valdivia, Chile

    Sara M. Rodríguez

  3. Centro de Estudios Parasitológicos y de Vectores (CCT-La Plata-CONICET-UNLP), Calle 120 s/n entre 61 y 62, 1900, La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Julia I. Diaz

  4. Instituto de Ciencias Ambientales y Evolutivas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Austral de Chile, Isla Teja s/n, Valdivia, Chile

    Guillermo D’Elía

Authors
  1. Sara M. Rodríguez
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  2. Julia I. Diaz
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  3. Guillermo D’Elía
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Correspondence to Sara M. Rodríguez.

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All applicable institutional, national and international guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection Acanthocephala.

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Rodríguez, S.M., Diaz, J.I. & D’Elía, G. Morphological and molecular evidence on the existence of a single estuarine and rocky intertidal acanthocephalan species of Profilicollis Meyer, 1931 (Acanthocephala: Polymorphidae) along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of southern South America. Syst Parasitol 94, 527–533 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11230-017-9716-6

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