Helminth parasites of Piabina argentea Reinhardt, 1867 in Rio Pardo, São Paulo, Brazil.

• Grant number: 23/10835-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2023
• End date: September 30, 2024
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Fishery Resources and Fishery Engineering - Inland Water Fishery Resources
• Principal Investigator: Reinaldo José da Silva
• Grantee: Beatriz Pátaro Canal
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências (IBB). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Botucatu. Botucatu , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Neotropical region is known for its high diversity of freshwater fishes, totaling more than 6,000 described species. Equally diverse is the parasitic fauna of these freshwater fishes, which can indicate various biological aspects of their hosts, such as diet, feeding behavior, migration, recruitment, phylogeny, and biogeography. In recent years, several rivers in Southeast Brazil have been suffering from the continuous increase in anthropic actions that lead to the extinction of populations of various organisms that develop the entire life cycle in this region, including fish and their parasites. Among these rivers is the Pardo River, which, although inserted in an Environmental Protection Area in the Southeast region, is used by the populations of the municipalities that border it, for urban supply, watering animals, aquaculture, irrigation and tourism. Consequently, these actions affect fishes, such as members of the Characiformes order, whose species, widely distributed throughout the Brazilian territory, throughout the Southeast region, but mainly in the Paranapanema River, have high economic and ecological importance. To understand the dynamics of environmental impacts, parasitological studies are important tools, despite this, little is known about the distribution and taxonomy of helminth parasites of fishes throughout the Neotropics. Therefore, the present research aims to carry out an inventory of the biodiversity of helminth parasites of fish of the species Piabina argentea Reinhardt, 1867, collected in Rio Pardo, State of São Paulo, through integrative taxonomy. For this, 30 specimens of P. argentea will be collected using sieve or seine. Morphological and morphometric analyzes of parasitic helminths will be performed using a computerized image analysis system with Differential Interference Contrast (DIC). Ecological descriptors of parasitism will be calculated, such as prevalence (P), average infestation intensity (IMI) and average abundance (AM). For molecular analysis, genomic DNA from parasite samples will be extracted and parts of ribosomal and mitochondrial DNA will be amplified. Then, phylogenetic reconstruction will be performed using the methods of Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Inference. This study will greatly contribute to the knowledge of the fauna of fish parasites in the Neotropical region.