DO ENVIRONMENTAL AND HOST VARIABLES INFLUENCE THE PARASITE COMMUNITY OF LEPTODACTYLUS FUSCUS (ANURA: LEPTODACTYLIDAE)...

Leptodactylus fuscus is a small-sized species widely distributed across South America. However, so far, no works have been addressed to analyze if biotic and abiotic factors may influence the parasite community in this species. Thus, the present work aims to describe the composition and structure of the parasite community and evaluate if biotic and environmental factors correlated to the distribution of the parasite community for this host. We collected 36 L. fuscus specimens from February 2018 to January 2019. The hosts were necropsied, and parasites were collected and identified. To test the effect of environmental variables (temperature, humidity, and precipitation) and morphological characters of the host (snout-vent length and body weight) on helminths of L. fuscus we used a multivariate distance matrix regression (MDMR). We found 10 helminth taxa: Aplectana sp., Aplectana membranosa, Cosmocercidae larvae, Mesocoelium sp., Mesocoelium aff. monas, Mesocoelium aff. sociale, Oswaldocruzia sp., Oxyascaris sp., Ortleppascaris sp. larvae, and Schrankiana formosula. In our study, the helminth community showed an aggregate pattern, and we did not observe a statistically significant correlation of body size and mass of the hosts regarding parasite abundance and richness. Thus, this study represents the first report of M. sociale, A. membranosa, and Ortleppascaris sp. larvae for L. fuscus and new locality reports. We conclude that there is no correlation between variables analyzed and the structure and composition of the parasite community of L. fuscus.