Copepods and fishes in the Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

The Amazon basin comprises the largest river ecosystem in the world (7 million km2) with annual high and low water peaks and a constant temperature near 29°C. Some 2000 fish species and 40 species of free-living copepods are known to occur in Amazonia. The free-living forms serve as food for most larval fishes and some adults, but they also transmit several parasites including representatives of the nematode family Camallanidae. About three dozen species of parasitic copepods have been described from the Brazilian Amazon. Females of Amazonian parasitic copepods are found on skin, gill filaments, gill rakers or within the nasal fossae. Parasitic copepods are found on fishes that are from a few millimeters long up to those over 2 m in length and they are usually quite host specific. All have body pigmentation in different patterns and colors (frequently blues, such as cerulean, cobalt, spectrum, smalt or campanula). It is suggested that the coloration serves to attract specific host fish. Copepods have evolved adaptations for attachment and feeding, especially in the second antennae and endopods. Examples of progenesis, phoresis and commensalism are shown. Some species produce pathology such as a tourniquet effect, hyperplasia, blood loss and anemia, and can kill fishes by limiting their respiration.