Distribution of parasites of slimy sculpin Cottus cognatus Richardson, 1836 (Scorpaeniformes: Cottidae) in the Athabasca
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FISH PARASITOLOGY - ORIGINAL PAPER
Distribution of parasites of slimy sculpin Cottus cognatus Richardson, 1836 (Scorpaeniformes: Cottidae) in the Athabasca drainage, Alberta, Canada, and their relation to water quality P. E. Braicovich 1
&
M. McMaster 2 & N. E. Glozier 3 & D. J. Marcogliese 4,5
Received: 22 February 2020 / Accepted: 16 July 2020 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The composition and diversity of parasite communities are useful tools to characterise ecosystem health and integrity. Environmental disturbances may affect parasite infection in fish directly, by their effects on the free-living stages, or indirectly, on the intermediate hosts. Slimy sculpins, Cottus cognatus, a small fish inhabiting cold waters of North America, have been considered as sentinels due to their limited mobility, often occupying relatively small areas throughout their lives and thus reflecting the local environment. Ninety-six specimens of C. cognatus were sampled from four tributaries of the Athabasca River to assess patterns of helminth parasite community structure in this fish and to study the composition and diversity of its parasite communities in relation to water quality. The localities included single samples from High Hills, Horse and Dunkirk rivers, and two from the Steepbank River. Twelve metazoan parasite species were found, most of them being larval forms. Significant differences occurred in the structure and composition of parasite assemblages of sculpins from the tributaries, although similarities were observed in connected and nearby sites. Parasite communities were influenced mainly by a combination of local environmental conditions, distance and connectivity, and were separated based on the distribution and abundance of autogenic and allogenic parasites. Water quality appeared to influence the distribution of trematode species that use gastropods as intermediate hosts, while proximity and connectivity of sites led to sharing allogenic parasite species in slimy sculpin. Keywords Parasite communities . Cottus cognatus . Water quality . Metals . Athabasca watershed
Introduction Parasites respond to ecosystem disturbances, and as such they can provide valuable information about a system’s quality, integrity and health in response to pollutants and other
stressors (Sures et al. 2017 and references therein). The composition and diversity of parasite communities may be used to characterise ecosystem health and integrity (Marcogliese 2005; Nachev and Sures 2009; Chapman et al. 2015). Pollution may affect parasite infection in fish directly, by its
Section Editor: Guillermo Salgado-Maldonado Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s00436-020-06819-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * P. E. Braicovich [email protected] 1
Laboratorio de Ictioparasitología, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), Universidad Nacional de Ma
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