Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T05:13:53.980Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Metapopulation and community dynamics of helminth parasites of eels Anguilla anguilla in the River Exe system

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 July 2001

C. R. KENNEDY
C. R. KENNEDY
Affiliation:
School of Biological Sciences, Hatherly Laboratories, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4PS
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The possibility that much of the spatial and temporal variation in helminth communities in freshwater fish can be explained in terms of metapopulation theory was tested by examining helminth component communities of eels sampled from 3 localities in the River Exe and 5 of its tributaries on 2 occasions at an interval of 3 years. Four specific predictions of metapopulation theory in relation to community dynamics were tested. The prediction that parasite species could be recognized as common and rare and that this was sensitive to scale was met. The prediction that core species would be more widely distributed and have a higher dispersal ability was met only in part. The prediction that similarity between communities would increase with connectivity and decrease with distance apart was not met. The final prediction that species would go locally extinct and be replaced by rescue effects was not met. There was evidence of local extinctions; not of eel specialists but of species using other fish species as their principal definitive hosts. Eel helminth communities were heavily dominated by 3 species of eel specialists which were relatively stable and responsible for most of the similarity and its changes in space and time. It was concluded that metapopulation theory did not provide a very satisfactory explanation for the changes in the helminth communities in eels and reasons for this included the inherent difficulty of applying metapopulation theory to parasites and the fact that the helminth communities in eels in the River Exe were atypical in being dominated by eel specialists.

Keywords

eelhelminth communitymetapopulationdynamicscommunity similarity
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 122 , Issue 6 , June 2001 , pp. 689 - 698
Copyright
© 2001 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BUSH, A. O. & HOLMES, J. C. (1986). Intestinal helminths of lesser scaup duck: patterns of association. Canadian Journal of Zoology 64, 132–141.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BUSH, A. O. & KENNEDY, C. R. (1994). Host fragmentation and helminth parasites: hedging your bets against extinction. International Journal for Parasitology 24, 1333–1343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
BUSH, A. O., LAFFERTY, K. D., LOTZ, J. M. & SHOSTAK, A. W. (1997). Parasitology meets ecology on its own terms: Margolis et al. revisited. Journal of Parasitology 83, 575–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ESCH, G. W., KENNEDY, C. R., BUSH, A. O. & AHO, J. M. (1988). Patterns in helminth communities in freshwater fish in Great Britain: alternative strategies for colonization. Parasitology 96, 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HANSKI, I. (1982a). Dynamics of regional distribution: the core and satellite species hypothesis. Oikos 38, 210–221.Google Scholar
HANSKI, I. (1982b). Communities of bumblebees: testing the core-satellite species hypothesis. Acta Zoologica Fennia 19, 65–73.Google Scholar
HANSKI, I. & GILPIN, M. (1991). Metapopulation dynamics. Biological Journal of the Linnaean Society 42, 3–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HARTVIGSEN, R. & HALVORSEN, O. (1993). Common and rare trout parasites in a small landscape system. Parasitology 106, 101–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HARTVIGSEN, R. & HALVORSEN, O. (1994). Spatial patterns in the abundance and distribution of parasites of freshwater fish. Parasitology Today 10, 28–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HARTVIGSEN, R. & KENNEDY, C. R. (1993). Patterns in the composition and richness of helminth communities in brown trout, Salmo trutta, in a group of reservoirs. Journal of Fish Biology 43, 603–615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
HOLMES, J. C. (1990). Helminth communities in marine fishes. In Parasite Communities: Patterns and Processes (ed. ESCH, G. W. BUSH, A. O. & AHO, J.), pp. 101–130. Chapman & Hall, London.CrossRef
HURLBERT, S. H. (1978). The measurement of niche overlap and some relatives. Ecology 59, 67–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R. (1978a). An analysis of the metazoan parasitocoenoses of brown trout Salmo trutta from British lakes. Journal of Fish Biology 13, 255–263.Google Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R. (1978b). The parasite fauna of resident char Salvelinus alpinus from Artic Islands, with special reference to Bear Island. Journal of Fish Biology 13, 457–466.Google Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R. (1984). The dynamics of a declining population of the acanthocephalan Acanthocephalus clavula in eels Anguilla anguilla in a small river. Journal of Fish Biology 25, 665–677.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R. (1990). Helminth communities in freshwater fish: structured communities or stochastic assemblages? In Parasite Communities: Patterns and Processes (ed. ESCH, G. W. BUSH, A. O & AHO, J. M.), pp. 18–156. Chapman & Hall, London.
KENNEDY, C. R. (1993a). The dynamics of intestinal helminth communities in eels Anguilla anguilla in a small stream: long-term changes in richness and structure. Parasitology 107, 71–78.Google Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R. (1993b). Introductions, spread and colonization of new localities by fish helminths and crustacean parasites in the British Isles: a perspective and appraisal. Journal of Fish Biology 43, 287–301.Google Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R. (1997). Long term and seasonal changes in composition and richness of intestinal helminth communities in eels Anguilla anguilla of an isolated English river. Folia Parasitologica 44, 267–273.Google Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R. & BUSH, A. O. (1994). The relationship between pattern and scale in parasite communities: a stranger in a strange land. Parasitology 109, 187–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R. & GUÉGAN, J.-F. (1994). Regional versus local helminth parasite richness in British freshwater fish: saturated or unsaturated parasite communities? Parasitology 109, 175–185.Google Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R. & GUÉGAN, J.-F. (1996). The number of niches in intestinal helminth communities of Anguilla anguilla: are there enough spaces for parasites? Parasitology 113, 293–302.Google Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R. & HARTVIGSEN, R. A. (2000). Richness and diversity of intestinal metazoan communities in brown trout Salmo trutta compared to those of eels Anguilla anguilla in their European heartlands. Parasitology 121, 55–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R., BATES, R. M. & BROWN, A. F. (1989). Discontinuous distributions of the fish acanthocephalans Pomphorhynchus laevis and Acanthocephalus anguillae in Britain and Ireland: an hypothesis. Journal of Fish Biology 34, 607–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KENNEDY, C. R., BERRILLI, F., DICAVE, D., DE LIBERATO, C. & ORECCHIA, P. (1998). Composition and diversity of helminth communities in eels, Anguilla anguilla, in the River Tiber: long term changes and comparison with insular Europe. Journal of Helminthology 72, 301–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MAGURRAN, A. E. (1988). Ecological Diversity and its Measurement. Croom Helm Ltd, London.CrossRef
MACARTHUR, R. H. & WILSON, E. O. (1967). The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
MARCOGLIESE, D. J. & CONE, D. K. (1998). Comparison of richness and diversity of macroparasite communities among eels from Nova Scotia, the United Kingdom and Australia. Parasitology 116, 73–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MORAVEC, F. (1985). Occurrence of endoparasitic helminths in eels (Anguilla anguilla (L.)) from the Macha Lake fishpond system, Czechoslovakia. Folia Parasitologica Praha 32, 113–125.Google Scholar
MORAVEC, F. (1994). Parasitic Nematodes of Freshwater Fishes of Europe. Academia and Kluwer Academic Publishers, Prague and Dordrecht, Boston, London.
NEE, S., GREGORY, R. D. & MAY, R. M. (1991). Core and satellite species: theory and artifacts. Oikos 62, 83–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
POULIN, R. & MORAND, S. (1999). Geographical distances and the similarity among parasite communities of conspecific host populations. Parasitology 119, 369–374.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SARAIVA, A. & EIRAS, J. C. (1996). Parasite community of European eel, Anguilla anguilla (L). in the River Este, Northern Portugal. Research and Reviews in Parasitology 56, 179–183.Google Scholar
SCHABUSS, M., KONECNY, R., BELPAIRE, C. & SCHEIMER, F. (1997). Endoparasitic helminths of the European eel, Anguilla anguilla, from four disconnected meanders from the Rivers Leie and Scheldt in western Flanders, Belguim. Folia Parasitologica 44, 12–18.Google Scholar
SIMBERLOFF, D. & MOORE, J. (1997). Community ecology of parasites and free-living animals. In Host–Parasite Evolution (ed. CLAYTON, D. H. & MOORE, J.), pp. 174–197. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
STOCK, T. M. & HOLMES, J. C. (1987). Host specificity and exchange of intestinal helminths among four species of grebes (Podicipedidae). Canadian Journal of Zoology 65, 669–679.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
SURES, B., KNOPF, K., WURTZ, J. & HIRT, J. (1999). Richness and diversity of parasite communities in European eels Anguilla anguilla of the River Rhine, Germany, with special reference to helminth parasites. Parasitology 119, 323–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar