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Effects of small weirs on fish parasite communities

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Abstract

In this study, we examined the impacts of small weirs on the parasite community of gudgeon and toxostome in a medium-sized river. We tested changes on parasite species diversity using indices that capture both richness and abundance characteristics, and we examined parasite community structure with null models (co-occurrence index C score) and a multiple discriminant function analysis (MDFA). Our results showed that parasite community diversity of gudgeon is strongly influenced by weirs with a maximum diversity upstream of the weirs. Weirs also induce change in abundance of gudgeon parasite species particularly during summer. Nevertheless, we obtained that weirs had no effect on the parasite co-occurrence patterns. In addition, similarity indices indicate that the parasite faunas of newly established limnophilic species (roach and bleak) are host-specific and are rarely transmitted to other fish species. We conclude that fish parasite communities responded in different ways to the presence of impassable weirs, but, in a general tendency, changing environmental conditions induced by weirs may represent an ecological risk.

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Acknowledgements

AŠ was founded by the Research Project of Masaryk University, Brno, Project N.: MSM 0021 622 416. This manuscript was much improved by the comments of Robert Poulin. We are grateful to David J. Paèz and Candida Shinn for correcting the English. We would like to thank Milan Gelnar, Boena Koubková and Markéta Ondraèková, (Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic) and Salah Bouamer (Centre de Biologie et Gestion des Populations, Campus international de Baillarguet, Montpellier, France) for their help with parasite determination. We are in debt to Fabien Leprieur who helped us in statistical analyses.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire Evolution et Diversité Biologique, U.M.R. 5174, CNRS–Université Paul Sabatier, 118 route de Narbonne, 31062, Toulouse Cedex 4, France

    Geraldine Loot, Simon Blanchet & Sovan Lek

  2. Département de Chimie-Biologie, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, C.P. 500, Trois-Rivières, Quebec, G9A 5H7, Canada

    Yorick Reyjol

  3. Conseil Supérieur de la Pêche, 112 faubourg de la Cueille, 86000, Poitiers, France

    Nicolas Poulet

  4. Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská 2, 61137, Brno, Czech Republic

    Andrea Simkova

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  1. Geraldine Loot
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  2. Yorick Reyjol
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  4. Andrea Simkova
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  6. Sovan Lek
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Geraldine Loot.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 Parasite species communities of gudgeon in each season upstream and downstream the weir
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Table 6 Parasite species communities of toxostome in each season upstream and downstream the weir
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Table 7 Parasite species communities of roach in each season upstream the weir
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Table 8 Parasite species communities of bleak in each season upstream the weir
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Loot, G., Reyjol, Y., Poulet, N. et al. Effects of small weirs on fish parasite communities. Parasitol Res 101, 1265–1276 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-007-0632-6

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