Protozoários epibiontes de Copepoda (Crustacea) na planície de inundação do alto rio Paraná : taxonomia, ecologia e distribuição.

Abstract

A breakthrough study was conducted concerning morphological, taxonomic, molecular e ecological features of epibiont protozoan ciliates in 36 sampling sites, of floodplain upper Paraná River, Paraná e Mato Grosso do Sul states, Brazil, for the periods of limnophasis e photamophasis. First of all, were presented a morphological, morphometrical, e molecular study, with the description of two epibiont ciliate species found colonizing copepods. To describe the species we gather information of in vivo observations, silver impregnation, scanning electron microscopy and molecular biology. After that, we tested the influence of abiotic local factors, associated to fluctuations of hydrological pulse e the signification effects of habitat types e systems under the species occurrence y of epibiont ciliate protists in both potamophase e limnophase of Upper Paraná River floodplain. We also registered the first occurrence in Brazil of the euglenid Colacium vesiculosum Ehrenberg 1853, as epibiont of copepods. This proposal gathers new taxonomic information to the already accessible in literature regarding subclass Peritrichia, through the description of two new species. We detected space-temporal differences in the infestation prevalence, indicating that the availability of food resources e abundance of hosts could be factors that contribute for the oscillation of population dynamic of epibiont ciliates e observed significant statistic differences among the study environments. We verified that the inundation pulse e its homogenizer effect in floodplain environments of upper Paraná River employ a positive effect under the epibiotic relationship, favoring the colonization of a higher number of environments e also a higher prevalence of infestation.