Poulin Robert, Rohde Klaus
Department of Zoology, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin, New Zealand fax: 64 3 479-7584; e-mail:
Department of Zoology, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351, Australia, , , , , , GB.
Oecologia. 1997 Apr;110(2):278-283. doi: 10.1007/s004420050160.
Parasite communities are the product of acquisitions and losses of parasite species during the evolutionary history of their host. When comparing the parasite communities of different host species to assess the role of ecological variables as determinants of parasite species richness, a correction must be made for the possible phylogenetic inheritance of parasites from ancestral hosts independent of host ecology. We performed a comparative analysis of the metazoan ectoparasite communities on the heads and gills of 111 species of marine fish. The influences of host body size, host schooling behaviour and water temperature were tested after controlling for both sampling and phylogenetic effects. Overall, water temperature correlated positively with both parasite species richness and abundance, whereas fish size only correlated with parasite abundance. The correlation across all fish species between water temperature and parasite species richness was dependent on an outlier point. The results, however, generally held when fish from different biogeographical areas (Pacific and Atlantic) were analysed separately. In all analyses, parasite species richness always correlated strongly with parasite abundance. There was no evidence that schooling fish taxa harboured richer or more abundant ectoparasite communities than their non-schooling sister taxa, possibly because of the small number of contrasts available for that test. Overall, whereas both water temperature and host size affect the number of parasite individuals that can be harboured by a fish, only temperature appears important as a determinant of ectoparasite community richness.
寄生虫群落是其宿主在进化历史中获得和失去寄生虫物种的产物。在比较不同宿主物种的寄生虫群落以评估生态变量作为寄生虫物种丰富度决定因素的作用时，必须对寄生虫可能从祖先宿主进行的系统发育遗传进行校正，而与宿主生态无关。我们对111种海洋鱼类头部和鳃上的后生动物体外寄生虫群落进行了比较分析。在控制了采样和系统发育效应后，测试了宿主体型、宿主集群行为和水温的影响。总体而言，水温与寄生虫物种丰富度和丰度均呈正相关，而鱼类大小仅与寄生虫丰度相关。所有鱼类物种中水温与寄生虫物种丰富度之间的相关性取决于一个异常点。然而，当分别分析来自不同生物地理区域（太平洋和大西洋）的鱼类时，结果通常成立。在所有分析中，寄生虫物种丰富度始终与寄生虫丰度密切相关。没有证据表明集群鱼类类群比其非集群姐妹类群拥有更丰富或更大量的体外寄生虫群落，这可能是因为该测试可用的对比数量较少。总体而言，虽然水温和宿主大小都会影响鱼类可容纳的寄生虫个体数量，但只有温度似乎是体外寄生虫群落丰富度的重要决定因素。
