Fish hosts of the critically endangered Unio foucauldianus Pallary, 1036 (Mollusca: Unionidae)
Conference Paper
Overview
Research
View All
Overview
abstract
Unio foucauldianus Pallaiy, 1936 (Unionidae) is a critically endangered freshwater
mussel, with a small geographical distribution restricted to Morocco. As many other
unionids, the life cycle of this species includes an obligatoiy parasitic phase using
fish as hosts. Therefore, the knowledge of fish hosts is essential to develop any
efficient conservation strategy devoted to this species. In this study, we used two
approaches to assess the fish hosts of Unio foucauldianus: determination of
infestation rates of fishes under natural conditions through a monthly (from
January to June) sampling in Laabid (Oum Er Rbia basin) and N'Fis (Tensift basin)
Rivers and laboratorial trials to assess metamorphose rates using different fish
species from both rivers. The natural infestation offish showed a peak ofinfestation
in May and juveniles only metamorphosed in the following native fish species:
Luciobarbus ksibi (Boulenger, 1905), Carasobarbus fritschü (Günther, 1874),
Luciobarbus zayanensis (Doadrio, Casal-López & Yahyaoui, 2016), Labeobarbus
maroccanus (Günther, 1874) and Luciobarbus magniatlantis (Pellegrin, 1919). Given
the increasing pressure on native fish species due to human activities, including
the increased number ofnon-native fish introductions that did not function as hosts
of U. foucauldianus, urgent conservation measures are needed to mitigate some of
the threats on native ichthyofauna. Only an integrated framework comprising
knowledge ofthe freshwater mussel biology and their native fish hosts can help th e
conservation of U. foucauldianus in Morocco.
