Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T12:56:21.087Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Physico-chemical determinants of helminth component community structure in whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformes) from adjacent lakes in Northern Alberta, Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2005

C. P. GOATER ,
R. E. BALDWIN  and
G. J. SCRIMGEOUR
C. P. GOATER
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta T1K 3M4, Canada
R. E. BALDWIN
Affiliation:
Hatfield Marine Science Center, 2030 S.E. Marine Science Drive, Newport, Oregon 97365, USA
G. J. SCRIMGEOUR
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 2E9, Canada Present address: Alberta Conservation Association, P.O. Box 40027, Baker Centre Postal Outlet, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T5J 4M9.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Populations of hosts vary extensively in the types and numbers of parasites that the average individual contains. Understanding the factors that lead to this variation is an important goal for parasite ecologists. We characterized patterns of helminth component community structure in whitefish collected from a cluster of 7 lakes located on an isolated plateau in northern Alberta, Canada. Component communities were species rich (5–6 species per lake), high in mean helminth intensity (approximately 80–500 individuals/host), and high in between-lake similarity (50–100%), a pattern consistent with results from studies on whitefish sampled from other localities in Northern Canada and Europe. Multivariate analyses indicated that the structure of the component communities was associated with 2 opposing environmental gradients. One was defined primarily by water colour, the second by phosphorous concentration. Thus, 4 lakes were characterized by a combination of high colour, low productivity, low parasite intensities, and the absence of larval acanthocephalans. Habitat/species associations were less clear as intensities increased, but the 3 remaining lakes tended to have the opposite characteristics. These results provide evidence that variation in helminth component community structure in fish is associated with variation in physicochemical characteristics that are linked to aquatic productivity.

Keywords

helminth community structuremultivariate analysestrophic statusfreshwater fish
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 131 , Issue 5 , November 2005 , pp. 713 - 722
Copyright
© 2005 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

REFERENCES

American Public Health Association ( 1992). Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater, 18th Edn. ( ed. Greenberg, A. E., Clesceri, L. S. and Eaton, A. D.) Washington, D.C., USA.
Baldwin, R. ( 2000). Community structure of parasites in whitefish from the Caribou Mountains, Alberta. M.Sc. thesis, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta.
Baldwin, R. and Goater, C. P. ( 2003). Circulation of parasites among fishes from lakes in the Caribou Mountains, Alberta, Canada. Journal of Parasitology 89, 215–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Begon, M., Harper, J. L. and Townsend, C. R. ( 1996). Ecology: Individuals, Populations and Communities, 3rd Edn. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford.
Bergeron, M., Marcogliese, D. J. and Magnan, P. ( 1997). The parasite fauna of brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis (Mitchill), in relation to lake morphometrics and the introduction of creek chub, Semotilus atromaculatus (Mitchill). Ecoscience 4, 427–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bush, A. O., Lafferty, K. D., Lotz, J. M. and Shostak, A. W. ( 1997). Parasitology meets ecology on its own terms: Margolis et al. revisited. Journal of Parasitology 83, 575–583.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choudhury, A. R. and Dick, T. A. ( 1998). Patterns and determinants of helminth communities in the Acipenseridae (Actinopterygii: Chondrostei), with special reference to the lake sturgeon, Acipenser fulvescens. Canadian Journal of Zoology 76, 330–349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Combes, C. ( 2001). Parasitism: the Ecology and Evolution of Intimate Interactions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA.
Crumpton, W., Isenhart, G. M. and Mitchell, P. L. ( 1992). Nitrate and organic N analyses with second-derivative spectroscopy. Limnology and Oceanography 37, 907–913.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curtis, M. A. ( 1988). Determinants in the formation of parasite communities in coregonids. Finnish Fisheries Research 9, 303–312.Google Scholar
Cuthbert, I. D. and Del Giogio, P. ( 1992). Towards a standard method for measuring color in freshwater. Limnology and Oceanography 37, 1319–1326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dogiel, V. A. ( 1961). Ecology of the parasites of freshwater fishes. In Parasitology of Fishes ( ed. Dogiel, V. A., Petrushevski, G. K. and Polyanski, Y. I.). pp. 1–47. Oliver and Boyd. London.
Esch, G. W. ( 1971). Impact of ecological succession on the parasite fauna of centrarchids from oligotrophic and eutrophic ecosystems. American Midland Naturalist 86, 160–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esch, G. W., Bush, A. O. and Aho, J. M. ( 1990). Parasite Communities: Patterns and Processes. Chapman and Hall, London.
Esch, G. W., Kennedy, C. R., Bush, A. O. and Aho, J. M. ( 1988). Patterns in helminth communities in freshwater fish in Great Britain: alternative strategies for colonization. Parasitology 96, 519–532.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartvigsen, R. and 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
Hartvigsen, R. and Halvorsen, O. ( 1994). Spatial patterns in the abundance and distribution of parasites in freshwater fish. Parasitology Today 10, 28–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holmes, J. C. ( 1990). Helminth communities in marine fishes. In Parasite Communities: Patterns and Processes ( ed. Esch, G. W., Bush, A. O. and Aho, J. M.), pp. 101–130. Chapman and Hall, London.CrossRef
Hurlbert, S. H. ( 1978). The measurement of niche overlap and some relatives. Ecology 59, 67–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karvonen, A. and Valtonen, E. T. ( 2004). Helminth assemblages of whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) in interconnected lakes: similarity as a function of species specific parasites and geographical separation. Journal of Parasitology 90, 471–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennedy, C. R. ( 1978). The parasite fauna of resident char Salvelinus alpinus from Arctic islands, with special reference to Bear Island. Journal of Fish Biology 6, 613–644.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. and Aho, J. M.), pp. 131–156. Chapman and Hall, London.
Leong, T. S. and Holmes, J. C. ( 1981). Communities of metazoan parasites in open water fishes of Cold Lake, Alberta. Journal of Fish Biology 18, 693–713.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcogliese, D. J. ( 2001). Pursuing parasites up the food chain: implications of food web structure and function on parasite communities in aquatic systems. Acta Parasitologica 46, 82–93.Google Scholar
Marcogliese, D. J. and Cone, D. K. ( 1991). Importance of lake characteristics in structuring parasite communities of salmonids from insular Newfoundland. Canadian Journal of Zoology 69, 2962–2967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDonald, T. E. and Margolis, L. ( 1995). Synopsis of the parasites of fishes of Canada: Supplement 1978–1993. Canadian Special Publication of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Number 122.
McCune, B. and Mefford, D. K. ( 1995). PC-ORD. Multivariate Analysis of Ecological Data. User's Guide. Version 2.0. MjM Software Design, Gleneden Beach, Oregon, USA.
McCune, B., Grave, J. B. and Urban, D. L. ( 2002). Analysis of Ecological Communities. MJM Software Design, Gleneden Beach, Oregon, USA.
McEachern, P., Prepas, E. E., Gibson, J. J. and Dinsmore, W. P. ( 2000). Forest fire induced impacts on phosphorus, nitrogen, and chlorophyll a concentrations in boreal subarctic lakes of northern Alberta. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 57 (Suppl.), 73–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, P. and Prepas, E. E. ( 1990). Atlas of Alberta Lakes. The University of Alberta Press, Edmonton.
Pace, M. L. ( 1986). An empirical analysis of zooplankton community size structure across lake trophic gradients. Limnology and Oceanography 31, 45–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poole, B. C. ( 1985). Fish-parasite population dynamics in seven small boreal lakes of central Canada. M.Sc. thesis, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
Poulin, R. and Morand, S. ( 2004). Parasite Biodiversity. Smithsonian Books, Washington, USA.
Scrimgeour, G. J., Tonn, W. M., Paszkowski, C. A. and Goater, C. P. ( 2001). Benthic macroinvertebrate biomass and wildfires: evidence for short and long-term enrichment of boreal subarctic lakes. Freshwater Biology 46, 367–378.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shostak, A. W. and Dick, T. A. ( 1989). Variability in timing of egg hatch of Triaenophorus crassus Forel (Cestoda: Pseudophyllidea) as a mechanism increasing temporal dispersion of coracidia. Canadian Journal of Zoology 67, 1462–1470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ter Braak, C. J. F. and Verdonschot, P. F. M. ( 1995). Canonical correspondence analysis and related multivariate methods in aquatic ecology. Aquatic Sciences 57, 255–289.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ter Braak, C. J. F. and Milauer, P. ( 1998). CANOCO Reference Manual and User's Guide to Canoco for Windows: Software for Canonical Community Ordination (version 4). Microcomputer Power, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Valtonen, E. T., Holmes, J. C. and Koskivaara, M. ( 1997). Eutrophication, pollution and fragmentation: effects on the parasite communities in roach (Rutilus rutilus) and perch (Perca fluviatilis) in four lakes in central Finland. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 54, 575–585.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, S. B., McCauley, E. and Downing, J. A. ( 1997). Patterns in phytoplankton taxonomic composition across temperate lakes of different nutrient status. Limnology and Oceonography 42, 487–495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wisniewski, W. L. ( 1958). Characterization of the parasitofauna of an eutrophic lake. Acta Parasitologica Polonica 6, 1–64.Google Scholar