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Infestation dynamics between parasitic Antarctic fish leeches (Piscicolidae) and their crocodile icefish hosts (Channichthyidae)

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Abstract

An understanding of host–parasite interactions represents an important, but often overlooked, axis for predicting how polar marine biodiversity may be impacted by continued environmental change over the next century. Here, we survey three species of crocodile icefish (Notothenioidei: Channichthyidae) collected from two island archipelagos in the southern Scotia Arc region for evidence of leech infestations. Specifically, we report on infestation prevalence, intensity, spatial patterns of relative abundances, size distribution of parasitized fish, and patterns of host and attachment site specificity. Our results reveal high levels of attachment area fidelity for each leech species. These results suggest skin thickness and density of the vascular network constrain leech attachment sites and further suggest trophic (i.e., post-cyclic) transmission to be an important axis of parasitization. We also demonstrate that, while leech species appear to be clustered spatially, this clustering does not appear to be correlated with fish biomass. This study illuminates the complex interactions among fish hosts and leech parasites in the Southern Ocean and lays the groundwork for future studies of Antarctic marine leech ecology that can aid in forecasting how host–parasite interactions may shift in the face of ongoing climate change.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the captain and crew of the R/V Cabo de Hornos for their excellent company and assistance during the course of this fieldwork and also thank Deris S.A. for providing the ship to carry out the work at sea, and Mr. Enrique Gutiérrez F., general manager of said company, for his permanent support in materializing these tasks. We would additionally like to thank Dieter Piepenburg, Florian Reyda, Aleksander Bielecki, Mario La Mesa, and two anonymous reviewers for providing helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this manuscript. We are particularly grateful for the hypothesis proposed by one of the anonymous reviewers that skin thickness and vascularization are driving the site attachment patterns we observed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 06520, USA

    Elyse Parker

  2. Antarctic Ecosystem Research Division, NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center, La Jolla, USA

    Christopher D. Jones

  3. Escuela de Ciencias del Mar, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Valparaiso, Chile

    Patricio M. Arana & Francisco Gallardo

  4. Instituto de Investigación Pesquera (INPESCA), Talcahuano, Chile

    Nicolás A. Alegría

  5. Instituto Español de Oceanografía, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Islas Canarias, España

    Roberto Sarralde

  6. Department of Invertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 20560, USA

    Anna J. Phillips

  7. Research Laboratory, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC, 27699, USA

    Bronwyn W. Williams & Alex Dornburg

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  1. Elyse Parker
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Correspondence to Elyse Parker.

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The authors have followed all applicable national and institutional guidelines for the collection, care, and ethical use of research organisms and material in the conduct of the research, in strict accordance with NOAA Antarctic Ecosystem Research Division policies under ACA Permit #2017-012. Animal collection was approved by the Yale University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (Protocol 10681) and adheres to the AFS guidelines for Use of Fishes in Research (https://fisheries.org/docs/wp/Guidelines-for-Use-of-Fishes.pdf).

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Parker, E., Jones, C.D., Arana, P.M. et al. Infestation dynamics between parasitic Antarctic fish leeches (Piscicolidae) and their crocodile icefish hosts (Channichthyidae). Polar Biol 43, 665–677 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-020-02670-x

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