Host-parasite interactions: a case study of the Barbus hybrid zone
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Fish specimens were sampled along the hybrid zone of two congeneric species B. barbus and B. meridionalis and subsequently dissected for the metazoan parasites. Overall, significantly higher abundance of metazoan parasites was found in the individuals of widely distributed B. barbus compared to rare B. meridionalis as well as hybrid individuals which did not differ significantly from each other. In concordance with the level of parasite infection, significantly higher values of splenosomatic index and lower condition factor were revealed in highly infected B. barbus in contrast to B. meridionalis. Intermediate values to those of parental species were detected in hybrid individuals. First preliminary results on the study of MHC genes based on 90 fish genotypes revealed an intermediate number of DAB-like alleles (3-4 alleles on average) expressed in hybrids compared to the B. barbus and B. meridionalis individuals which expressed typically 4-5 and 2-3 DAB-like alleles, respectively. Therefore, higher number of DAB-like alleles expressed in highly parasitized B. barbus comparing to both B. meridionalis and hybrids characteristic by lower parasite infection seems to be the result of co-evolutionary processes between hosts and their parasites. |
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