| dc.description.abstract | Although the three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus
aculeatus L, is a common euryhaline fish, the salinity
tolerances of its parasites have not been studied. The
present survey was undertaken to remedy this. Sticklebacks
were caught at twenty-five freshwater, brackish
and marine sites in Southern England, Scotland and the
Isle of Man, and yielded thirty-two species of parasite.
As a result-of this field work, the effect of the
following parameters - geographical variation, seasonal
variation, sex of the host, speciation of the host,
parasite interdependence, length of the fish host and
salinity - on the parasite, fauna were analysed.
The salinity tolerance of a number of ectoparasites
was studied in detail, and the sodium ionic
content of intestinal fluid of starved and fed sticklebacks
in various salinities were measured.
As a result of all these studies, the parasites
were assigned to six salinity-range categories and a
comprehensive fauna list representing freshwater,
brackish water and marine water was built up. | en_US |
