Abstract
Wild and cultured winter flounder Pseudopleuronectes americanus (Walbaum) from Passamaquoddy Bay were surveyed for species of Gyrodactylus Nordmann, 1832. Two species were found: G. pleuronecti Cone, 1981 and G. aideni n. sp, both members of Malmberg’s ‘groenlandicus group’. Although the hard parts in the haptor are very similar in the two species, hamuli of G. aideni are consistently shorter than those of G. pleuronecti. The two species differed by 35 base pairs in the ITS 1, 5.8 and ITS 2 region. A BLAST search identified a variety of species of Gyrodactylus from marine fishes in the Atlantic Ocean as closest matches, indicating the ‘groenlandicus group’ is part of a major marine lineage within Gyrodactylus (sensu lato) that has successfully radiated among coastal percid, pleuronectid, cottid and anarhichadid fishes. Exposure experiments suggested that winter flounder is the primary host of both species of parasites and that three other pleuronectid species in the bay may potentially serve only as occasional transport hosts.
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Acknowledgements
The senior author thanks Dr. Jo Cable for her enormous hospitality and willingness to help with the SEM work and with the initial sequencing that was done during a visit to Cardiff. The research was supported by an NSERC Strategic Grant awarded to D.K.C. and M. D. B. Burt. The authors thank Dr. Duane Barker for assistance throughout the study and the staff of the Huntsman Marine Sciences Center, St. Andrews, New Brunswick.
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Mullen, A.J., Cone, D.K., Easy, R. et al. Taxonomy and host-specificity of Gyrodactylus aideni n. sp. and G. pleuronecti (Monogenea: Gyrodactylidae) from Pseudopleuronectes americanus (Walbaum) in Passamaquoddy Bay, New Brunswick, Canada. Syst Parasitol 77, 233–239 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11230-010-9270-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11230-010-9270-y