Impact of the fish hybridization on the parasite community: specificity, diversity and co-evolution
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Influence of the host hybridization and its consequences on the parasite community formation of the fish hybrids have been in focus for past few decades. Limited mainly by the temporal variability, the poikilothermic fish host is hybridizing frequently in nature. The hybridization in fish influences their physiology, immunity and ecology. The interspecific hybrids represent the models to study genetic limits of host specificity of parasite species, host resistance/susceptibility and co-evolutionary host-parasite relationships. Role of the fish hybridization and maternal origin of hybrids on the parasite diversity and specifically on the host-specific parasites were studied. The level of parasite infection in two hybridizing cyprinid systems was studied. The first system studied represents the natural hybridization between evolutionary divergent species - roach (Rutilus rutilus) and common bream (Abramis brama). In this system, morphological traits (anal fin ray number, number of gill rakers, number of scales in lateral line) and genetic markers (microsatellites; cyt b partial gene) were used for individual determination. The second system studied represents the artificially prepared pure and F1 hybrid lines of two phylogenetically related species - the silver bream (Blicca bjoerkna) and common bream (A. brama). The analyses using both systems indicate the higher parasite species richness in F1 hybrids when compared to their parental species. Specialist and generalist parasite species of the parental fish were present in the parasite communities of the cyprinid hybrids. However, several parasite species exhibiting the strict host specificity were not present in the parasite communities of hybrids. It may be related to the different level of the host-parasite co-adaptation between host-specific parasite species and its host species. The parasite community composition might be dependent on the degree of the genetic introgression between hybridizing host species and parasite affinity to the specific fish host. |
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