Ecologia

Ecologia da comunidade de metazoários parasitos da anchova Pomatomus saltatar (Linnaeus) (Osteichthyes,
Pomatomidae) do litoral do estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil 1
José Luis Luque 2
Nilton Domingos Chaves 2
ABSTRACT. Community ecology of metazoan parasites of bluefish Pomatomus saltator (Linnaeus) (Osteichthycs, Pomatomidac) from the littoral ofState ofRio de Janeiro, Brazil. Fifiy-five specimens ofbluefish, POl11atol11us saltator (Linnaeus,
1766), collected at Cabo Frio (23°S, 42°W), State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between
March 1995 and November 1995, were necropsied to study their infracommunities of metazoan parasites. Sixteen species ofmetazoan parasites were collected. Ali fish were parasitized by one 01' more metazoan. The digeneans were the majority ofthe parasite specimens collected, with 44.2%, followed by the helminth larva I stages (cestodes, acanthocephalans, and nematodes) with 40.6%. The Simpson index for ali parasite species was 0.097, indicating lack of dominance by any species in the parasite community. Microcotyle pOl11a/ol11i Goto, 1899 showed the higher frequency of dominance and mean relative dominance. The parasite species of P. salta/oI' showed the typical overdispersed paltern of distribution. The majority of parasite species showed positive correlation between the host's total body length and prevalence 01' parasite abundance. Two species, Brachyphallus parvlls (Manter, 1947) and Phoca/ lema sp. have differences in their prevalences and abundances in relation to sex ofthe hosts. The mean diversity in the infracommunities of P. salta/oI' was H'=1.243±0.521, with correlalion with the host's totallength and without difference between male and female fish. The components ofthe parasite community ofP. sai/a/oI' showed overall positive association. AlI pairs confonned by ectoparasites and adult endoparasites species showed signiticant positive association OI' covariation between their abundances.
Five pairs of