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Parasite assemblages of estuarine-dependent marine fishes from Mar Chiquita coastal lagoon (Buenos Aires Province, Argentina)

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Abstract

The estuarine-dependent marine fish includes marine species that inhabit, at some stage of their life cycle, the Mar Chiquita coastal lagoon, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. In the present study, we examined for parasites a total of 209 fishes belonging to following the estuarine-dependent marine species: Brevoortia aurea, Odontesthes argentinensis, Mugil platanus, Paralichthys orbignyanus, Micropogonias furnieri, and Pogonias cromis. The parasite fauna in the six host species comprised 43 parasite species, the majority of which represented new locality and new host records. A high percentage of fish was parasitized with at least one parasite species. The greatest values of prevalence were registered for M. furnieri, B. aurea, and P. cromis, at the component community level, followed by P. orbignyanus, O. argentinensis, and M. platanus. On the other hand, B. aurea, O. argentinensis, M. furnieri, and P. cromis showed similar percentages of both larval and adult stages of parasites. In the case of M. platanus, adult stages dominated the total number of parasites, whereas P. orbignyanus harbored mainly larval stages. Out of the six fish species herein studied, M. platanus seems to generally act only as definitive host in the local parasite’s life cycle. From a parasitological point of view, the expression “estuarine-dependent marine fishes” remains valid, although the contribution of the fish species in the lagoon to the maintenance of parasite populations is relatively minor.

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully thank Laboratory of Marine Sciences from Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata for kindly providing fish samples. We also wish to thank Dr. Robert Poulin (University of Otago, New Zealand) for his critical comments and valuable suggestions on an earlier version of the manuscript. The present study was funded by a grant from Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata to JAE (EXA 411/08 15/E359) and by a Doctoral grant from Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) to AJA.

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  1. Laboratorio de Parasitología, Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Funes 3350, (7600), Mar del Plata, Argentina

    Ana Julia Alarcos & Jorge Alejandro Etchegoin

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  1. Ana Julia Alarcos
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  2. Jorge Alejandro Etchegoin
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Correspondence to Ana Julia Alarcos.

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Alarcos, A.J., Etchegoin, J.A. Parasite assemblages of estuarine-dependent marine fishes from Mar Chiquita coastal lagoon (Buenos Aires Province, Argentina). Parasitol Res 107, 1083–1091 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-010-1974-z

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