Subterranean Fishes of the World

3203

2013

AIM 2013

Monogeneans are fish parasites with high host specificity and a direct life-cycle, which enforce a tight relationship with their host (Huyse & Volckaert, 2005). These features, as well as their capacity for colonization makes them an excellent model for studying speciation. The host populations of Astyanax mexicanus cave dwelling cave and surface variants present important differences in terms of their morphology, physiology and behavior. A. mexicanus is an excellent model system in evolutionaty biology. Here, we propose the association between monogeneans parasites and their host A. mexicanus as a model to study co-evolutionary hypotheses. For this, we identified the parasites morphologically and sequenced the cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 (COX 1) of both parasites and cave and surface fishes collected in the Abra region. We have found Gyrodactylus species of monogeneans located in the gills and anus of Astyanax hosts. We are constructing the phylogenies of both parasites and host to test evolutionary hyphotheses like cospeciation, hots-switching and parallel divergence.

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