Abstract

The diversity and ecology of cestodes from the northern fur seals, Callorhinus ursinus (NFS), were examined using newly collected material from 756 humanely harvested subadult males between 2011 and 2014. NFSs were collected from five different haul-outs on St. Paul Island, Alaska. A total of 14,660 tapeworms were collected with a prevalence of 98.5% and intensity up to 107 cestodes per host (mean intensity 19.7 ± 16.5 SD). Three species of tapeworms were found: Adenocephalus pacificus (Diphyllobothriidea) was the most prevalent (prevalence 97.4%), followed by Diplogonoporus tetrapterus (49.7%), and 5 immature specimens of Anophryocephalus cf. ochotensis (Tetrabothriidea) (0.5%). Most of the cestodes found in the NFS were immature (69.7%). However, only 0.9% of cestodes were in larval (plerocercoid) stages. The species composition, prevalence and intensity of cestodes from these NFSs were not statistically different between the five separate haul-outs. Significant increases in the intensity of NFS infections were observed during the study period.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-2015

Notes/Citation Information

Published in International Journal for Parasitology: Parasites and Wildlife, v. 4, no. 2, p. 256-263.

© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Australian Society for Parasitology.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijppaw.2015.04.007

Funding Information

This work was partially supported by the Czech Science Foundation (grant number P506/12/1632) and the Institute of Parasitology, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences (grant number RVO: 60077344). J.S.H.O. benefited by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the General Directorate of Academic Staff Affairs (DGAPA), UNAM, Mexico.

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