Abstract

RODRIGUEZ-GONZALEZ, Abril  and  VIDAL-MARTINEZ, Víctor M.. The helminth communities of tonguefish (Symphurus plagiusa) of the Campeche coast, Mexico. Rev. Mex. Biodiv. [online]. 2008, vol.79, n.1, pp.159-173. ISSN 2007-8706.

The component communities and infracommunities of Symphurus plagiusa were characterized for 37 sampling points from May to September 2003 along the Campeche coast. Possible statistical associations were also studied between the abundance of each helminth species and environmental parameters (e.g. salinity, oxygen concentration, river discharge water volumes) using redundancy analysis (RDA). We examined 531 hosts, whose component communities and infracommunities were poor in species number (maximum: 8 and 3 ± 1 respectively); but not in number of individuals (16775 and 47 ± 32). Diversity was low (component: Simpson = 1; infracommunity: Brillouin = 0.24 ± 0.11). Similarity within months was also low for both component communities (qualitative, Jaccard: 0.25 ± 0.34; quantitative, % of similarity: 51 ± 49) and infracommunities (qualitative: 0.59 ± 0.24; quantitative: 46 ± 24). Similarity between months was high for component communities (qualitative: 0.63 ± 0.28; quantitative: 82 ± 15) and infracommunities (qualitative: 0.89 + 0.10; quantitative: 77 ± 21). There were significant associations between the abundance of species and the river water discharges between months, which suggest high influence of this parameter on the structure and composition of these helminth communities.

Keywords : helminth communities; temporal variation; tonguefish; Gulf of Mexico.

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