Parasites and the Amazon molly: a role for the Red Queen?

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We want to study the role of parasites in the maintenance of the mating system of the asexual Amazon molly. We apply the idea that a "Red Queen" like coevolutionary arms race might be providing a significant benefit for the sexual species. To tackle this problem we want to compare the parasite loads of asexual and sexual mollies, which live in identical habitats. The project proposed here will continue a study that was started in the fall of last year. To complete the study we plan to sample populations of P.formosa and P.latipinna in Texas (USA). We will determine parasite loads using standard techniques available in fish parasitology and use the data to make comparisons on three levels: (1) compare the sites before and after winter, (2) compare the asexual Amazon molly (P.formosa) and the sexual P.latipinna with respekt to parasite load (this will be the main comparison), and finally compare the sampled populations. The parasitological data will be supplemented by data on ecology and behavior of the species in relation to parasite load. Only very few studies have so far used this theoretical framework for direct comparisons of a sexual and an asexual species, and we expect a number of high ranking publications to result from this study.