The occurrence of parasitic copepods and isopods infesting the marine teleost fishes of Kerala coast, India
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The occurrence of parasitic copepods and isopods infesting the marine teleost fishes of Kerala coast, India Thasnim S. Nizar1
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Megha Raveendran1 • Sisira Chenkayi Parambil1 • Sudha Kappalli1
Received: 7 May 2020 / Accepted: 3 September 2020 Ó Indian Society for Parasitology 2020
Abstract The present study reports the occurrence of parasitic copepods and isopods infecting marine teleost fishes from the Kerala coast, India. A total of 1795 fishes belonging to 38 species were collected from the fish landing centres across the Kerala Coast for 5 months. The isopod & copepod infection status of these fishes were assessed. The incidents of site-specific infection were documented for all parasites and a fecundity analysis was conducted in randomly selected species. The single or multiple parasitic crustacean infestation and host preference (single or multiple hosts) were also documented. A total of 32 species of copepods and 6 species of isopod were sourced out. However, the maximum prevalence was recorded for the family Lernanthropidae (71.43%) and the maximum intensity (14) was recorded for a Caligid copepod Euryphorus nordmannii. The predominantly targeted region of infection on the host fish appeared to be gill filament (52.15%). The fecundity showed significant differences between the tested species. Fourteen species of fishes showed multiple parasitic crustacean infestation and eight species of parasites infected multiple hosts. The present study demonstrates that over 68% of marine fish species of Kerala coast were under heavy infection either by isopods or copepods.
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12639-020-01268-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. & Sudha Kappalli [email protected] 1
Department of Zoology, Central University of Kerala, Periye, Kasaragod, Kerala, India
Keywords Isopods Copepods Prevalence Intensity Fecundity
Introduction Crustaceans are one of the major Arthropod groups preferring aquatic life with diverse levels of adaptation. A significant proportion of crustaceans exhibit parasitism infecting both cultured and captive fishes (Athanassopoulou et al. 2001; Barber and Poulin 2002; Rijin et al. 2017; Bas¸ usta et al. 2017) and thus affect the behaviour, growth, health of the host fish (El-Rashidy and Boxshall 2010; Misganaw and Getu 2016). Mostly the infestation gets fatal employing the infectious injuries made by the parasites during its feeding of the host’s mucus, blood, muscles and other vital tissues (Margolis and Kabata 1988; Og˘uz and Oktener 2007). Most known parasitic crustaceans comprise copepods, isopods, brachyuran, tantulocarids, and rhizocephalic cirripedes (Thamban et al. 2015). They exhibit close interrelatedness in the sustainability of their own with the host organism (Margolis and Kabata 1988; Raibaut and Trilles 1993; Raibaut et al. 1998; Williams and Boyko 2012). Parasitic crustacean diseases in fishes seriously affect aquaculture produ
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