title: Parasite communities of Adriatic cage-reared fish.
abstract: From June 2001 to March 2002, 7 semi-offshore facilities in the Adriatic Sea rearing sea bass Dicentrarchus labrax, sea bream Sparus aurata, sharpsnout bream Diplodus puntazzo and red sea bream Pagellus bogaraveo aged 1+, were monitored for the presence of protozoan and metazoan parasites. Obtained data sets of abundance and prevalence were used to evaluate the structure and dynamic of infra- and component parasite communities. In all hosts, except the red sea bream, dominant parasites were monogenean specialists, showing clear seasonality. Average infracommunity richness was very low, ranging from 1 to 3 parasites per fish, while at component community level, values ranged from 3 to 8, depending on host species. Based on low diversity indices and a moderate to high similarity coefficient between different facilities, it can be concluded that the parasitofauna of Adriatic cage-reared fish is a stable and impoverished stochastic assemblage, with monogeneans as the predominant parasitic group.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, P.O. Box 500, 21000 Split, Croatia. mladineo@izor.hr
authors.forename: Ivona
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Mladineo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017756:Aquaculture; D044822:Biodiversity; D005393:Fish Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000469:parasitology*; D005880:Gills / Q000469:parasitology; D008522:Mediterranean Sea; D010273:Parasitic Diseases, Animal / Q000453:epidemiology*; D010473:Perciformes; D015995:Prevalence; D013045:Species Specificity