Publication details
Species of Macvicaria (Gigson & Bray, 1982) (Digenea: Opecoelidae) in the Mediterrean and Antarctic
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | Macvicaria Gibson & Bray, 1982 is a large digenean group of parasites in marine fishes throughout the world ocean. In a study on the diversity of digeneans in sparid fishes (Diplodus annularis, Lithognathus mormyrus, Oblada melanura, Sparus aurata and Spondyliosoma cantharus) in the western Mediterranean and in nototheniid fishes (Trematomus newnesi, T. hansoni, T. bernacchii and Notothenia coriiceps) in the western Antarctic we characterised morphologically and molecularly a large number of isolates of Macvicaria spp. The ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 gene cluster and partial fragments of the 28S rRNA gene were amplified for representative samples from each host species and 28S rDNA sequences were analysed together with sequences for related species of the family Opecoelidae Ozaki, 1925. Comparative morphological and molecular analyses revealed the presence of M. dubia (Stossich, 1905) and two new species of Macvicaria in the sparids of the western Mediterranean and of two species, M. antarctica (Kovaljova & Gaevskaya, 1974) and M. pennelli (Leiper & Atkinson, 1914) in the nototheniids from the Weddel Sea (Antarctica). The phylogenetic hypotheses estimated from Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood analyses revealed that species of Macvicaria collected from the two distant localities and from phylogenetically distant hosts do not represent a monophyletic assemblage. Our results, and especially the inclusion of novel molecular data for the Antarctic Macvicaria spp., highlight the need of obtaining sequences for more species, and especially for the type-species [M. alacris (Looss, 1901)] in order to resolve the boundaries of the genus Macvicaria and its relationships within the Opecoelidae. |
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