Project description:This work investigated the relationship of host size, seasons, and water quality parameters with the prevalence and intensity of Cornudiscoides agarwali on Mystus bleekeri collected from the Dikrong River in Arunachal Pradesh, India from February 2016 to January 2017. A total of 2760 specimens of C. agarwali were recovered from 114 individuals of M. bleekeri. The levels of mean intensity, but not the prevalence, of infection of C. agarwali were positively correlated with fish host size, peaking in the largest size class (45.20 ± 5.69 parasites/fi sh). The prevalence values had a statistically significant seasonal trend, reaching highest (100 %) during the pre-monsoon season, followed by 91.8% during the post-monsoon period and 87.5 % during the monsoon season. The levels of mean intensity of infection were also dependent on the seasons, reaching significantly higher levels during the pre-monsoon season (42.75 ± 4.18 parasites/fi sh). All water quality parameters measured were within the safety value recommended for freshwater aquaculture. Cornudiscoides agarwali maintained its prevalence above 87.5 % throughout the annual cycle, which means it was able to reproduce year-round in a non-polluted river. This could be an indication of monogenoidean community and population dynamics thriving best under optimum water quality parameters. Also, this article draws the attention of parasitologists and ichthyologists to a taxonomic problem of the misidentification of Mystus spp., and therefore, possibly of their parasitic monogenoids.
Project description:Population's biological parameters, including length at first capture, mortalities, exploitation rates, growth coefficient, longevity, and recruitment times, are essential in assessing fishing status, but there is no data on Mystus mysticetus. Therefore, the study was conducted to provide these parameters to assess the fishing status of this species at Cai Rang, Can Tho (CRCT) and Long Phu, Soc Trang (LPST). A collection of 741 individual fish was used for analysis and showed that most fish size groups ranged from 9.0 cm to 12.0 cm, and the asymptotic length was 16.8 cm for both CRCT and LPST populations. The fish population von Bertalanffy curve was L t = 16.80(1 - e-0.51(t + 0.38)) at CRCT and L t = 16.80(1 - e-0.48(t + 0.40)) at LPST. The fish growth coefficient at CRCT (2.16) was higher than at LPST (2.13), whereas the reverse case was true for longevity ranging from 5.88 years (at CRCT) to 6.25 years (at LPST). At CRCT, fishing mortality, natural mortality, total mortality, and exploitation rate were 0.69/year, 1.40/year, 2.09/year, and 0.33, respectively; at LPST, these values were 0.75/year, 1.33/year, 2.08/year, and 0.36, respectively. Although the population parameter of this fish species exhibited a spatial variation, both CRCT and LPST fish resources have not been subjected to overexploit because E (0.33 at CRCT and 0.36 at LPST) is lower than E 0.1 (0.707 at CRCT and 0.616 at LPST).