Local extinction of a parasite of Magellanic penguins? The effect of a warming hotspot on a 'cold' trematode.

ABSTRACT: It is often postulated that natural systems are expected to suffer an increasing risk of infectious disease outbreaks as climate change accelerates. In the northern Argentine Sea, the rise of ocean temperature has produced a tropicalization of demersal megafauna since 2013. This rapidly warming hotspot provides an excellent model to test whether fish parasites have increased, declined, or remained stable in the region. Cardiocephaloides physalis a parasite of penguins Spheniscus magellanicus as adult and suspected to parasitize anchovies Engraulis anchoita as larvae is here used to compare their occurrence and abundance between samples composed by 1752 fish of variable age caught at different latitudes during 1993-1995 and 2022 and between 20 juvenile birds and literat

SUBMITTER: Marcotegui P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12186095 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature