Parasites of coral reef fish: how much do we know? With a bibliography of fish parasites in New Caledonia

A compilation of 107 references dealing with fish parasites in New Caledonia permitted the production of a parasite-host list and a host-parasite list. The lists include Turbellaria, Monopisthocotylea, Polyopisthocotylea, Digenea, Cestoda, Nematoda, Copepoda, Isopoda, Acanthocephala and Hirudinea, with 580 host-parasite combinations, corresponding with more than 370 species of parasites. Protozoa are not included. Platyhelminthes are the major group, with 239 species, including 98 monopisthocotylean monogeneans and 105 digeneans. Copepods include 61 records, and nematodes include 41 records. The list of fish recorded with parasites includes 195 species, in which most (ca. 170 species) are coral reef associated, the rest being a few deep-sea, pelagic or freshwater fishes. The serranids, lethrinids and lutjanids are the most commonly represented fish families. Although a list of published records does not provide a reliable estimate of biodiversity because of the important bias in publications being mainly in the domain of interest of the authors, it provides a basis to compare parasite biodiversity with other localities, and especially with other coral reefs. The present list is probably the most complete published account of parasite biodiversity of coral reef fishes. However, it is estimated that the present state of knowledge ( 370 parasite species) represents only 2\% of the possible number of metazoan parasites of fish present in a coral reef environment.