Using parasites as biological tags of fish populations: a dynamical model.

A simple model of macro-parasitic infections has been used to evaluate the potential use of parasites as biological tags of fish populations. In the model, the parasite-host interaction is regulated by a birth-death process, and parasites can only be acquired by the non-specific migratory host population in a particular area of the space domain. In this case, we show that parasites can be successfully used for stocks identification and to describe the migratory routes taken by some marine fish species.