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Seasonal variations in host-parasite relations between fish and their Protozoa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

Elmer R. Noble
Elmer R. Noble
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara College
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Extract

From July 1955 to June 1956 a study of host-parasite relations between three species of marine fish and their Protozoa was made at Plymouth. Callionymus lyra, a bottom-dweller, tends to be more abundant during the summer months, consumes a wide variety of food, and was more heavily infected with Protozoa than were the other two species offish. Gadus merlangus is an active predator, feeding on small fish, and although it has about the same numbers of kinds of Protozoa as does C. lyra, it was less heavily parasitized. G. merlangus, however, was more heavily parasitized with worms than were the other two fish. Microstomus kitt is a sluggish bottom-dweller, feeding on annelids, and, although over 99% were infected with myxosporidia, the intensity of infection was generally low. Very few other parasites were found in M. kitt.

An active predatory habit combined with a taste for a wide variety of food appears to predispose to heavy parasitism. Some evidence for seasonal variations in intensities of protozoan infection in Callionymus lyra was obtained, but for conclusive results more precise methods of measuring numbers of parasites, and further studies carried on over a period of at least three consecutive years, must be made. The report is presented primarily to emphasize the importance of an ecological approach to the study of parasitology.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , February 1957 , pp. 143 - 155
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1957

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