Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2021
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster E100
Höfundar / Authors: Haseeb S Randhawa
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: 1. Háskolí Ísland
Kynnir / Presenter: Haseeb S Randhawa
There is an assumption that fish exploited for human consumption are generally well studied and that scientists have a good understanding of their ecology and biology. However, most host-parasite checklists, even those of commercial and recreational fishes, do not represent an exhaustive record of all host-parasite associations. The New Zealand (NZ) red cod (Pseudophycis bachus) is a demersal generalist predator endemic to NZ and Australian waters fished commercially. It is a common prey of apex predators such as marine mammals and seabirds. Thirteen different species of macroparasites have been reported previously from this fish in NZ, but only two tapeworm species. Based on the parasite fauna of apex predators in these waters, I predicted that the number of tapeworm species reported from red cod is underestimated. Here, I show that red cod off the coast of southeastern NZ are host to ten different species of tapeworms. The number of tapeworm species recovered from these 30 fish suggests that the true diversity of tapeworms in red cod is at least five-fold that reported previously. Furthermore, eight of the ten tapeworm species recovered were larvae of species which use elasmobranchs as definitive hosts. These results suggest that the red cod plays a more significant role in the diet of elasmobranchs than first suspected. Also, due to the small sample size and restricted geographical area sampled, the true diversity of tapeworm-red cod associations should be even greater.