Publication details
Preliminary phylogenetic analyses of Dactylogyrus spp. from Enteromius hosts from the Limpopo and Olifants River systems, South Africa
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Members of the genus Dactylogyrus are fish ectoparasites primarily infecting the gills of cyprinids. By far the most diverse species group among monogeneans consists of more than 900 nominal species. There have been numerous studies on the phylogenetic relationships of Dactylogyrus spp. from other countries, however, very little is known about their phylogeny in Africa. The studies of the phylogenies are important to understand the patterns of evolutionary relationships amongst species. Currently, only seven species are known from Enteromius hosts in South Africa, while the eighth is doubtful (herein discussed). Fish hosts were collected from various dams and rivers within the Limpopo and Olifants River systems, using a combination of conventional angling gear, casts nets, seine nets, fyke nets and an electric shocker. Fish were identified using standard procedures. From these, three hosts were identified, Enteromius afrohamiltoni, Enteromius unitaeniatus and Enteromius trimaculatus. Parasites were collected from the gills and were preserved in 96% ethanol where after DNA was extracted. From the extracted DNA samples, the partial 18S rDNA region and the entire ITS1 was amplified using primers S1 and IR8, and the 28S rDNA region was amplified using CI and D2 primers. Phylogenetic relationships were estimated using PAUP* to employ parsimony (MP), neighbour joining (NJ), maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian inference methods. This study represents preliminary estimation of the phylogenetic relationships among six species of Dactylogyrus from Enteromius hosts collected from the Limpopo and Olifants River systems. Although data collection and analyses is still on-going, this study provides the first phylogenetic relationship of Dactylogyrus-Enteromius from Africa. |
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