Acanthocephalans parasites of two Characiformes fishes as bioindicators of cadmium contamination in two neotropical rivers in Brazil.

Studies have demonstrated the role of acanthocephalan as environmental bioindicators. The dynamics in the parasite-host relationship that define the patterns of distribution of trace metals in parasites and, in its host, are extremely variable. In addition, the neotropical region, which is a major maintainer of the biodiversity of fish and parasites, remains little explored in this subject. Therefore, our objective was to analyze and compare the concentration of Cadmium (Cd) in the tissues of Prochilodus lineatus and Serrasalmus marginatus collected from Baía and Paraná rivers, as well as to assess the use of acanthocephalan as environmental bioindicators of pollution and their Cd bioaccumulation capacity. We collected 53 fish, 20 specimens of Prochilodus lineatus from Paraná River and 17 from Baía River, in addition to 16 specimens of Serrasalmus marginatus from Baía River, in September 2017 and March 2018. Tissues of the fish along with their parasites were subjected a Cd concentration analysis by Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. The results revealed that the parasites had higher concentrations than all the tissues of S. marginatus, P. lineatus from Baía River and Paraná River. The high Cd concentrations in these parasites derived from their bioaccumulation capacity, because of the absorption of nutrients directly from the intestinal content of the fish through the tegument, as well as for the presence of Cd on the surface waters of Praná River floodplain. Besides that, the Coefficient of Spearman Rank Correlation showed that the infrapopulation size seems to affect Cd bioaccumulation in the parasites, smaller infrapopulations demonstrate a higher accumulation capacity compared to the larger ones. With that, we concluded that the two acanthocephalans species analyzed in this study have a good capacity for Cd accumulation, and can be used as accumulation indicators of trace-metal pollution. Accumulation indicators provide important information on the biological availability of pollutants.

Host age predicts parasite occurrence, richness, and nested infracommunities in a pilot whale-helminth network.

Ecological data on marine mammal parasites represent an excellent opportunity to expand our understanding of host-parasite systems. In this study, we used a dataset of intestinal helminth parasites on 167 long-finned pilot whales Globicephala melas (Traill, 1809) from seven localities in the Faroe Islands to evaluate the extent to which the host's age and sex influence the occurrence, richness, and nested pattern of helminth parasites and the importance of individual hosts to the helminth community. We found positive effects of age on both the occurrence and richness of helminths. Older host individuals showed an ordered accumulation of parasites, as evidenced by the nested pattern in their composition. Males had a higher occurrence of parasites than females, but the richness of helminths did not differ between sexes. Our findings suggest that differences in host-parasite interactions in long-finned pilot whales result mainly from age-structured variations in biological and behavioral characteristics.

Parasitism by larval tapeworms genus Spirometra in South American amphibians and reptiles: new records from Brazil and Uruguay, and a review of current knowledge in the region.

Spargana are plerocercoid larvae of cestode tapeworms of the genus Spirometra, Family Diphyllobothriidae, parasitic to frogs, reptiles, birds and mammals. This parasitic disease in humans can be transmitted through the use and consumption of amphibians and reptiles. The available knowledge about Spirometra in South America is scarce, and there are only a few reports on the occurrence of sparganum in amphibians and reptiles, many of them published in old papers not easily available to researchers. In this work we present a review on this topic, provide new records in two species of amphibians and 7 species of reptiles from Brazil and Uruguay respectively. We also summarize current knowledge of Spirometra in the continent, along with an updated of host taxonomy. We could gather from the literature a total of 15 studies about amphibian and reptile hosts, published between 1850 and 2016, corresponding to 43 case reports, mostly from Brazil (29) and Uruguay (8), Argentina (3), Peru (2), and Venezuela (1); the majority of them related to reptiles (five lizards and 26 snake species), and 14 corresponded to amphibians (9 anurans). Plerocercoid larvae were located in different organs of the hosts, such as subcutaneous tissue, coelomic cavity, peritoneum, and musculature. The importance of amphibians and reptiles in the transmission of the disease to humans in South America is discussed. Relevant issues to be studied in the near future are the taxonomic characterization of Spirometra in the region and the biological risk of reptile meat for aboriginal and other rural communities.

Anuran Species Richness, Composition, and Breeding Habitat Preferences: a Comparison between Forest Remnants and Agricultural Landscapes in Southern Brazil.

Fabrício Hiroiuki Oda, Vinicius Guerra Batista, Priscilla Guedes Gambale, Fabio Teruo Mise, Fagner de Souza, Sybelle Bellay, Jean Carlo G. Ortega, and Ricardo Massato Takemoto (2016) The expansion of agriculture causes habitat loss and fragmentation that negatively affects biodiversity. We analyzed the species richness, composition and habitat preferences of anuran species in aquatic habitats in mesophytic semideciduous Atlantic Forest remnants and surrounding agricultural landscapes in southern Brazil, between April 2011 and March 2013. Nineteen anuran species, belonging to 11 genera and 5 families, were recorded. Species richness was similar between the forest remnants and the agricultural landscapes (18 and 19 species, respectively). Anuran species composition was associated with habitat type and the number of vegetation types in breeding habitats. Most species preferred breeding habitats in the agricultural landscape. Our results suggest that the anuran species recorded have access to both forest remnants and agricultural landscapes, as species richness in the two areas was similar. Habitat type and the number of vegetation types may influence species composition, because vegetation provides shelter and calling sites for anurans, which breed mainly in lentic water bodies. Thus, to maintain anuran populations in fragmented landscapes, it is important to preserve artificially constructed bodies of water within the agricultural landscape and on the forest edge.

The patterns of organisation and structure of interactions in a fish-parasite network of a neotropical river.

The use of the complex network approach to study host-parasite interactions has helped to improve the understanding of the structure and dynamics of ecological communities. In this study, this network approach is applied to evaluate the patterns of organisation and structure of interactions in a fish-parasite network of a neotropical Atlantic Forest river. The network includes 20 fish species and 73 metazoan parasite species collected from the Guandu River, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. According to the usual measures in studies of networks, the organisation of the network was evaluated using measures of host susceptibility, parasite dependence, interaction asymmetry, species strength and complementary specialisation of each species as well as the network. The network structure was evaluated using connectance, nestedness and modularity measures. Host susceptibility typically presented low values, whereas parasite dependence was high. The asymmetry and species strength were correlated with host taxonomy but not with parasite taxonomy. Differences among parasite taxonomic groups in the complementary specialisation of each species on hosts were also observed. However, the complementary specialisation and species strength values were not correlated. The network had a high complementary specialisation, low connectance and nestedness, and high modularity, thus indicating variability in the roles of species in the network organisation and the expected presence of many specialist species.

Developmental stage of parasites influences the structure of fish-parasite networks.

Specialized interactions tend to be more common in systems that require strong reciprocal adaptation between species, such as those observed between parasites and hosts. Parasites exhibit a high diversity of species and life history strategies, presenting host specificity which increases the complexity of these antagonistic systems. However, most studies are limited to the description of interactions between a few parasite and host species, which restricts our understanding of these systems as a whole. We investigated the effect of the developmental stage of the parasite on the structure of 30 metazoan fish-parasite networks, with an emphasis on the specificity of the interactions, connectance and modularity. We assessed the functional role of each species in modular networks and its interactions within and among the modules according to the developmental stage (larval and adult) and taxonomic group of the parasites. We observed that most parasite and host species perform a few interactions but that parasites at the larval stage tended to be generalists, increasing the network connectivity within and among modules. The parasite groups did not differ among each other in the number of interactions within and among the modules when considering only species at the larval stage. However, the same groups of adult individuals differed from each other in their interaction patterns, which were related to variations in the degree of host specificity at this stage. Our results show that the interaction pattern of fishes with parasites, such as acanthocephalans, cestodes, digeneans and nematodes, is more closely associated with their developmental stage than their phylogenetic history. This finding corroborates the hypothesis that the life history of parasites results in adaptations that cross phylogenetic boundaries.

Is the community of fish gill parasites structured in a Neotropical floodplain?

Sixty-one specimens of the piranha Serrasalmus marginatus Valenciennes, 1837 were analyzed, aiming at assessing the community structure of their gill parasites. The samples were collected in lagoons of the Paraná, Ivinheima and Baia Subsystems within the Upper Paraná River Floodplain (Brazil). Host size and sex had little or no influence on the abundance and prevalence of parasites. The organization of the gill parasite infracommunities of S. marginatus was significantly non-random according to null models and ordination analyses. In general, parasite infrapopulations were not affected by interspecific associations or host characteristics (e.g. size, sex), what highlights the importance of local habitat characteristics to community organization of gill parasites of S. marginatus in the Upper Paraná River Floodplain.

A host-endoparasite network of Neotropical marine fish: are there organizational patterns?

Properties of ecological networks facilitate the understanding of interaction patterns in host-parasite systems as well as the importance of each species in the interaction structure of a community. The present study evaluates the network structure, functional role of all species and patterns of parasite co-occurrence in a host-parasite network to determine the organization level of a host-parasite system consisting of 170 taxa of gastrointestinal metazoans of 39 marine fish species on the coast of Brazil. The network proved to be nested and modular, with a low degree of connectance. Host-parasite interactions were influenced by host phylogeny. Randomness in parasite co-occurrence was observed in most modules and component communities, although species segregation patterns were also observed. The low degree of connectance in the network may be the cause of properties such as nestedness and modularity, which indicate the presence of a high number of peripheral species. Segregation patterns among parasite species in modules underscore the role of host specificity. Knowledge of ecological networks allows detection of keystone species for the maintenance of biodiversity and the conduction of further studies on the stability of networks in relation to frequent environmental changes.

A new species of Jainus (Monogenea), gill parasite of Schizodon borellii (Characiformes, Anostomidae) from the upper Paraná river floodplain, Brazil / Uma nova espécie de Jainus (Monogenea), parasito de brânquias de Schizodon borellii (Characiformes, Anostomidae) da planície de inundação do alto rio Paraná, Brasil

Jainus piava n. sp. is described from the gills of Schizodon borellii (Boulenger, 1900) (Characiform), commonly named as piava from the upper Paraná River floodplain, Brazil. The new species differs from the other members of Jainus in the following features: ventral bar thin broadly V-shaped and male copulatory organ (MCO) a coil of about 1.5 rings. Jainus piava n. sp. is similar to species of Jainus by having a ventral anchor base with flattened superficial root and elongate rodlike deep root.

Jainus piava sp. nov é descrito para brânquias de Schizodon borellii (Boulenger, 1900) (Chacariformes) comumente chamado de piava na planície de inundação do alto rio Paraná, Brasil. A nova espécie difere de outros membros de Jainus pelas seguintes características: barra ventral fina levemente em forma de V e órgão copulatório masculino (MCO) com cerca de uma volta e meia de diâmetro do anel. Jainus piava sp. nov é similar a outras espécies do gênero Jainus por ter a âncora ventral com uma raiz superficial com extensão alongada.

Ecological aspects of Diplectanum piscinarius (Platyhelminthes, Monogenea) parasite of gills of Plagioscion squamosissimus (Osteichthyes, Sciaenidae) in the Upper Paraná River floodplain, Brazil - DOI: 10.4025/actascibiolsci.v27i3.1279 / Aspectos ecológicos de Diplectanum piscinarius (Platyhelminthes, Monogenea) parasita de brânquias de Plagioscion squamosissimus (Osteichthyes, Sciaenidae) da plan. inund. Alto rio Paraná, B - DOI: 10.4025/actascibiolsci.v27i3.1279

Thirty-nine specimens of Plagioscion squamosissimus Heckel, 1840 were collected through nets of different mesh sizes in the Upper Paraná River floodplain. The occurrence of Diplectanum piscinarius Kritsky and Thatcher, 1984 was registered and it presented mean abundance of 31, mean intensity of 31.8 and prevalence of 97%. This paper also brings an ecological analysis of some aspects of the host-parasite relationship between D. piscinarius and P. squamosissimus. There were not significant differences between the prevalence and intensity of parasitism of males and females. There were not correlations between abundance and prevalence and the standard length of the hosts; and between relative condition factor (Kn) and abundance. From the results it is possible to assume that there are few physiological and behavioral differences between male and female hosts. Physiological changes probably do not occur during the development of the hosts and parasites do not seem to be very pathogenic

Trinta e nove espécimes de Plagioscion squamosissimus Heckel, 1840 foram coletados com redes de espera de diferentes malhagens na planície de inundação do Alto rio Paraná. Foi registrada a ocorrência de Diplectanum piscinarius Kritsky e Thatcher, 1984, que apresentou abundância média igual a 31, intensidade média 31,8 e prevalência 97%. Realizou-se uma análise ecológica de alguns aspectos da relação parasita-hospedeiro entre D. piscinarius e P. squamosissimus. Não houve diferenças significativas entre prevalência e intensidade de parasitismo em machos e fêmeas. Não houve correlações entre abundância e prevalência com o comprimento padrão dos hospedeiros e entre o fator de condição relativo com a abundância. Através dos resultados, é possível supor que, provavelmente, existem poucas diferenças fisiológicas e comportamentais entre hospedeiros machos e fêmeas, não ocorrem mudanças fisiológicas durante o desenvolvimento dos hospedeiros e o parasita exibe baixa patogenicidade