Abstract
Cleaner fish remove parasites from other organisms, called clients. While there is an extensive body of work on the positive role of cleaners for their clients and reef communities, remarkably, potential parasites hosted by specialised cleaner fishes themselves have not been explored. In this study, we surveyed the parasite community of the Indo-Pacific cleaner wrasse Labroides dimidiatus, and compared it to other wrasses from the same region. L. dimidiatus was found to be infected by eight parasite groups including ectoparasites (copepods, isopods, trichodinids, monogeneans and turbellarians) and endoparasites (myxozoans, trematodes and cestodes) representing at least 12 species. The abundance and prevalence of most parasite groups was comparable to other wrasses, with the exception of bucephalid trematodes, which are not known to infect any other tropical wrasses except for Labroides species. This adds to mounting evidence that some parasite species exhibit atypical life cycles that exploit cleaning symbiosis. Particularly noteworthy was the discovery of gnathiid isopods on L. dimidiatus, which are generally considered the cleaner’s primary food item. Our findings provide new evidence for a potential role of wild cleaner fish as vectors of parasites to new clients, which highlights potential costs associated with cleaning symbiosis.
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Data availability
Data from this research is available at JCU Research Data Repository: https://doi.org/10.25903/hrzn-2564
Code availability
All data used, and R scripts are available at the JCU Research Data Repository: https://doi.org/10.25903/hrzn-2564
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Acknowledgements
We thank Alexia Dubuc for assistance in the field. We thank David Vaughan, Alejandro Trujillo González, Katie Motson, Geoffrey Boxshall, Jean-Lou Justine and Marlies Monnens for support with parasite identification. We thank Renato Morais for his assistance with statistical analyses and for helpful comments on the manuscript and Gabriela Muñoz for sharing data for comparison with other labrids. The authors also wish to thank Mark McCormick for financial support and the staff of Lizard Island Research Station for their constant technical support. We thank Eden Cartwright, Bird Circus, for assistance with Fig. 1. The authors acknowledge the Dingaal and Quandamooka people, the traditional owners and custodians of the land and country upon which this research was carried out, and pay respects to elders past and present of those nations.
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James Cook University Postgraduate Research Scholarship (JCUPRS) to PN. The University of Queensland to ASG.
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PN, KSH, ASG and RQY designed the study. PN and RQY collected the data. PN analysed the data and wrote the paper. All authors contributed to drafting and editing.
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Narvaez, P., Yong, R.QY., Grutter, A.S. et al. Are cleaner fish clean?. Mar Biol 168, 59 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-021-03858-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-021-03858-3