title: Developmental stage of parasites influences the structure of fish-parasite networks.
abstract: Specialized interactions tend to be more common in systems that require strong reciprocal adaptation between species, such as those observed between parasites and hosts. Parasites exhibit a high diversity of species and life history strategies, presenting host specificity which increases the complexity of these antagonistic systems. However, most studies are limited to the description of interactions between a few parasite and host species, which restricts our understanding of these systems as a whole. We investigated the effect of the developmental stage of the parasite on the structure of 30 metazoan fish-parasite networks, with an emphasis on the specificity of the interactions, connectance and modularity. We assessed the functional role of each species in modular networks and its interactions within and among the modules according to the developmental stage (larval and adult) and taxonomic group of the parasites. We observed that most parasite and host species perform a few interactions but that parasites at the larval stage tended to be generalists, increasing the network connectivity within and among modules. The parasite groups did not differ among each other in the number of interactions within and among the modules when considering only species at the larval stage. However, the same groups of adult individuals differed from each other in their interaction patterns, which were related to variations in the degree of host specificity at this stage. Our results show that the interaction pattern of fishes with parasites, such as acanthocephalans, cestodes, digeneans and nematodes, is more closely associated with their developmental stage than their phylogenetic history. This finding corroborates the hypothesis that the life history of parasites results in adaptations that cross phylogenetic boundaries.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia de Ambientes Aquáticos Continentais, Universidade Estadual de Maringá, Núcleo de Pesquisas em Limnologia, Ictiologia e Aqüicultura, Maringá, Paraná, Brazil ; Centro de Ciências Humanas e da Educação, Universidade Estadual do Norte do Paraná, Campus Jacarezinho, Grupo de Estudos e Pesquisa em Recursos Hídricos e Ecologia Aplicada, Jacarezinho, Paraná, Brazil.
authors.forename: Sybelle
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bellay
authors.forename: Edson Fontes
authors.initials: EF
authors.lastname: de Oliveira
authors.forename: Mário
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Almeida-Neto
authors.forename: Dilermando Pereira
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Lima Junior
authors.forename: Ricardo Massato
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Takemoto
authors.forename: José Luis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Luque
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005393:Fish Diseases / Q000469:parasitology; D005399:Fishes / Q000469:parasitology*; D010271:Parasites / Q000472:pathogenicity*