Master's Monday Blog - Deep-sea fish parasites!

Hello!

My name is Matt Woodstock. I am a master’s student at Nova Southeastern University studying under Dr. Tracey Sutton. My thesis project is about the trophic ecology and parasitism of mesopelagic (open ocean, 200 – 1000 m depth) fishes in the Gulf of Mexico. 

Mesopelagic fishes are important consumers of small crustaceans (shrimp-like animals) and are prey of oceanic predators (e.g. tunas and billfishes). Some mesopelagic fishes undertake a diel vertical migration, meaning these fishes migrate up into the near-surface waters at night and then migrate back down into the deep, dark depths during the day. These fishes migrate so that they can avoid visual predators in the epipelagic (0-200 m) during the day but take full advantage of the abundant food supply there at night under the cover of darkness. Other mesopelagic fishes do not vertically migrate and remain deep at night. A lot of animals participate in this daily movement and it is regarded as the largest daily animal migration on Earth! 

A hatchetfish (left) and a lanternfish (right). The hatchetfish does not undergo a daily vertical migration, but the lanternfish does. Images courtesy of DEEPEND/Dante Fenolio.

So what exactly do I study? My job is to dissect a wide variety of fishes and identify their gut contents and parasites. The gut contents obviously tell us what the fish has recently eaten, but the parasites I am interested in are transmitted through their diet. Certain parasites, called endoparasites, live within another animal (a host) and must go through different animals to complete their life cycle. If I find a lot of the same parasite in the same species of fish that means that fish has eaten the same prey item for the majority of its life. If I find a lot of different parasites within a species, then the diet of that fish may have shifted at some point in its life, or that fish may have a general diet where it eats many different types of prey. Results from this type of study allow us to make conclusions about the connectivity and stability of different ecosystems.

Two roundworms from fishes on DEEPEND cruises. On the left picture, notice the white, swirly looking object. This parasite is attached to the intestine, where it feeds on the digested nutrients of the host’s food. 

The coolest part about my project is that many of the fishes I study have never been examined for parasites before. That means that I am the first person to see a parasite within that fish before (or I am at least the first person to write it down)! I am also studying the external parasites, called ectoparasites, of these fishes as I find them. These parasites are unique because they spend part of their lives searching for a host to latch onto, and then they attach themselves to a host for the remainder of their life (normally)! They also make for a great picture!

Two types of external parasites from fishes captured during DEEPEND cruises. These parasites will attach themselves to the host through the scales and feed on the host’s tissue or previously digested food.