Relationships among black marlin, Makaira indica, in eastern Australian coastal waters, inferred from parasites [Queensland]
1994
Speare, P. (Australian Inst. of Marine Science, Townsville)
Parasites of black marlin, Makaira indica, from Queensland coastal waters were examined in order to evaluate their usefulness as biological tags providing information on host movements. Sixty-three black marlin were sampled between 1987 and 1989 from 5 localities between Cape Moreton in southern Queensland and Lizard Island in the north. Black marlin carried 31 parasite taxa of which 21 were new host records, including one new species, Maricostula makairi Bruce and Cannon, 1989. Multi-dimensional scaling and cluster analysis of data on 8 parasite taxa considered to be long-lived indicated that juvenile black marlin in Queensland coastal waters are isolated from adults of Lizard Island. There was a tendency for parasite infections to increase with latitude within a cohort of juvenile fish, which is consistent with a hypothesis of southerly migration in coastal waters. Information from 9 short-lived parasite taxa suggested that similar short-term movements by juvenile and adult population; the latter results were interpreted as, not a mixing of the juvenile and adult subpopulations, but an acquisition of short-lived infections by adults, similar to those of the juvenile marlin, during movement into shelf-edge water for spawning.
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