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Revista de Biología Tropical
On-line version ISSN 0034-7744Print version ISSN 0034-7744
Abstract
OSORIO, Ramón Alexis Fernández; WONG, Raúl Igor Corrada and ARMENTEROS, Maickel. Variations of the parasitic infracommunity during the ontogeny of Chromis cyanea (Perciformes: Pomacentridae) in the North coast of Havana, Cuba. Rev. biol. trop [online]. 2015, vol.63, n.3, pp.717-726. ISSN 0034-7744.
The infracommunity of parasites of Chromis cyanea(Pisces: Pomacentridae) was studied along the ontogenetic development in the North coast of Havana, Cuba. The objectives were: a- to prove that the core species appears before the strange and stochastic species and they are responsible for the structure in the infracommunity, b- to determine if there is a relationship among the ecological describers of the parasitic infracommunity with the total length. A total of 278 specimens of C. cyaneawere captured during the dry season (April) of 2010. The body size range was from 1.5 to 11.5 cm including juvenile and adults. We collected 2 861 parasite specimens belonging to 20 taxa: Crustacea (5), Nematoda (5), Trematoda (4), Cestoda (2), Monogenea (2), Turbellaria (1) and Ciliophora (1). The taxa Tetraphyllidea and Anilocra chromisconstituted the core of the parasitic infracommunity. The sequence of appearance and persistence of these taxa during the ontogenetic development, supported the hypothesis of the core species. The changes in the infracommunity, from 6 cm body size, could be the result of an accumulative effect combined with changes of the diet that caused the ingestion of new parasite infective stages. We concluded that the ontogenetic development of C. cyaneaconstitutes an important variable in the formation of the parasitic infracommunity.
Keywords : Chromis cyanea; infracommunity; ontogeny; parasites; marine fishes; core species; Cuba.