A major goal of community ecology is to identify and explain non-random patterns of species composition. To date, the search for nested patterns in parasite component communities of the same fish host species has not been attempted, despite the fact that this higher hierarchical level is more relevant to nestedness analyses. The aims of this study are first, to determine the structure of compon...

Eighty-nine specimens of Selene setapinnis (Mitchill, 1815) collected from the coastal zone of the State of Rio de Janeiro (21-23 degrees S, 41-45 degrees W and 23 degrees 05'S, 44 degrees 30'W), Brazil, from August 2001 to May 2002, were necropsied to study their metazoan parasites. Eighty-one (91%) specimens of S. setapinnis were parasitized by one or more metazoan species. Twenty-one species...

Understanding factors that determine heterogeneity in levels of parasitism across individuals is a major challenge in disease ecology. It is known that genetic makeup plays an important role in infection likelihood, but the mechanism remains unclear as does its relative importance when compared to other factors. We analyzed relationships between genetic diversity and macroparasites in outbred, ...