| Galaxias maculatus (small puyen) is a prey fish which plays a main role in lake food webs of Patagonia. Previous studies, at local scale, have shown that the richness and composition of parasitic metazoan component communities associated to G. maculatus in a group of small shallow lakes in the surroundings of the Nahuel Huapi Lake, are affected by the composition of the native fish assemblage in each lake. The aims of this work were: a) to characterize the helminth community of G. maculatus at regional scale, including data of 28 Andean lakes of the Neuquén and Río Negro Provinces, and b) to identify biotic and abiotic factors of these lakes influencing the occurrence and prevalence of the different helminth species parasitizing this highly abundant and... |
