| Autor: |
Montes MM; Centro de Estudios Parasitológicos y Vectores (CEPAVE), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata (CCT, CONICET-UNLP), La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina., García I; Instituto de Limnología 'Dr. Raúl A. Ringuelet', CONICET, La Plata, Argentina., Paredes Del Puerto JM; Instituto de Limnología 'Dr. Raúl A. Ringuelet', CONICET, La Plata, Argentina., Barneche JA; Centro de Estudios Parasitológicos y Vectores (CEPAVE), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata (CCT, CONICET-UNLP), La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina., Ibañez Shimabukuro M; Centro de Estudios Parasitológicos y Vectores (CEPAVE), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata (CCT, CONICET-UNLP), La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina., Reig Cardarella GF; Escuela de Tecnología Médica y Centro Integrativo de Biología y Química Aplicada (CIBQA). Universidad Bernardo O' Higgins, Santiago de Chile, Chile., Martorelli SR; Centro de Estudios Parasitológicos y Vectores (CEPAVE), Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata (CCT, CONICET-UNLP), La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina., Pérez Ponce de León G; Escuela Nacional de Estudios Superiores Unidad Mérida (ENES-Mérida), Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico. |
| Abstrakt: |
Clinostomidae is a diverse family of digenean parasitizing fish-eating birds as adults and fishes as metacercariae. The species composition, within the genus Clinostomum has been steadily increasing in recent years. In Argentina, four named species of Clinostomum have been documented, accompanied by four metacercariae representing distinct genetic lineages whose adults have not been identified. This study focused on examining clinostomids in three fish species - Australoheros scitulus (ASI), Cichlasoma dimerus (CDIM), and Pimelodella laticeps (PLA) - at various localities in Argentina. We conducted both morphological and molecular characterizations of the Clinostomum metacercariae collected from these fish species. Molecular phylogenetic analyses using COI mtDNA were performed to determine the placement of these metacercariae within the clinostomid phylogenetic tree. Clinostomum ASC represents a distinct lineage, morphologically distinguishable from other sequenced metacercariae due to its body shape (widest anteriorly and becoming slender towards the posterior end); this lineage was found to be closely related to C. caffarae. While Clinostomum CDIM and Clinostomum PLA exhibited morphological differences, they clustered together genetically with metacercariae reported in previous studies as Clinostomum L3 and Clinostomum CVI. This outcome, coupled with a low genetic distance (0 to 3%), suggests that they are conspecific with metacercariae found in fish across Mexico, Costa Rica, and Argentina. In light of the extensive diversity of fish species in Argentine freshwater ecosystems (over 500 species), and considering the relatively constrained extent of prior investigations, the anticipation of unearthing additional Clinostomum species or lineages is plausible. |
