Revista Chilena de Historia Natural 77 (4): 627-637, 2004
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Feeding habits and endoparasite fauna of the clingfish Gobiesox marmoratus
Jenyns, 1842 (Pisces: Gobiesocidae) on the central coast of Chile are intertwined, but not correlated
A high similarity is documented in the composition of the endoparasitic fauna and the diet
of the clingfish G. marmoratus Jenyns, 1842, between three localities off the central coast of Chile separated about 400
km from their nearest neighbor(s). Clingfish in the samples were similar between localities in total body length. The
parasite fauna was composed by 16 metazoan taxa (including five Myxozoa). Parasites were found in 38.8 % of the
108 clingfish examined, whereas 32.4 % of the fish in the samples had stomach contents, where 37 prey items were
recognized. The even rarer cases of co-occurrence of parasites and prey impeded the search of correlations between
both type of variables, such as that between the dietary width and parasite richness. Composition of parasite
infracommunities and diet changed along host ontogeny. The diet of juvenile and adult clingfish consisted mainly of
amphipods, decapod crustaceans and mollusks at the three localities. The numerical descriptors of the diet and of
infracommunities (total abundance, diversity and richness) are similar between the localities and along the host ontogeny.
The composition of the endoparasitic fauna necessarily depends on the diet of the clingfish, but there is no statistical
correlation between both variables. This can be due to the small maximum body size reached by the adults, to the short
length of the digestive tract, to the differences in the rate and frequency at which parasites and prey enter and stay in the
hosts, to the level of taxonomic resolution attained in prey and/or parasites, and to having decided to include or not rare
prey/ parasites in the analyses.
Key words:
diet, parasite
communities, Gobiesox marmoratus, ontogeny, Chile
