Metazoan endoparasites of 18 anuran species from the mesophytic semideciduous Atlantic Forest in southern Brazil

ABSTRACT

Brazil has the richest anuran biodiversity in the world and many species have not yet been studied for parasites. One hundred and forty frogs belonging to 18 species (Rhinella schneideri, Dendropsophus aff. minutus, Dendropsophus nanus, Hypsiboas albopunctatus, Hypsiboas punctatus, Hypsiboas raniceps, Phyllomedusa tetraploidea, Pseudis platensis, Scinax fuscovarius, Trachycephalus typhonius, Leptodactylus chaquensis, Leptodactylus fuscus, Leptodactylus aff. latrans, Leptodactylus mystacinus, Leptodactylus podicipinus, Physalaemus cuvieri, Physalaemus nattereri and Elachistocleis bicolor) collected in aquatic habitats in forest remnants and surrounding agricultural landscapes in southern Brazil were examined for endoparasites. Twenty-four species of endoparasites were identified among 21 adult and three larval individuals: one species of Monogenea, Polystoma lopezromani; eight species of Digenea, Catadiscus marinholutzi, Catadiscus propinquus, Choledocystus simulans, Gordoderina sp., Neohaematoloechus neivai, Rauschiella lenti, Rauschiella linguatula, Rauschiella repandum; one species of Cestoda, Ophiotaenia sp.; one species of Acanthocephala, Centrorhyncus sp.; 12 species of Nematoda, Aplectana sp., Aplectana travassosi, Cosmocerca podicipinus, Raillietnema sp., Schrankiana formolusa, Falcaustra mascula, Oxyascaris oxyascaris, Ochoterenella digiticauda, Physaloptera sp., Brevimulticecum sp., Rhabdias sp., Parapharyngodon hylidae; and one species of Annelida, Dero (Allodero) lutzi. The endoparasite fauna found is constituted by generalist species. Two new records of occurrence in Brazil and 33 new host records are reported.

KEYWORDS:

• Agricultural ecosystem
• Annelida
• Anura
• Atlantic Forest
• helminths
• parasites

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Valdir Leite, José Cândido, Valdenir F. de Souza, Celso P. dos Santos, Alexandrina Pujals, Fábio H. Yamada and Rogério F. Hanish for providing field assistance, as well as CAPES/PROEX for the financial support. We would like to thank the Programa de Pós-graduação em Ecologia de Ambientes Aquáticos Ambientais (PEA), Programa de Pós-graduação em Biologia Comparada (PGB), Núcleo de Pesquisas em Limnologia, Ictiologia e Aquicultura (NUPÉLIA) and Estação Ecológica do Caiuá for providing logistical support during fieldwork. RJG, FHO, FSL, VGB and PGG worked in partnership with CAPES. RMT is also a CNPq grantee of a research productivity partnership. Finally, we would like to thank Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBio/SISBIO) (process #23866-1) and Instituto Ambiental do Paraná (IAP) (process #278/10) for having provided the collection permits. The satellite image for Estação Ecológica do Caiuá was extracted from Google Earth (©2016 Google/CNES/Astrium).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.​

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Programa de Excelência Acadêmica – PROEX/Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior – CAPES under Grant number 1586/2014. ​