Walter Antonio Boeger

Federal University of Paraná | UFPR · Department of Zoology

The limited temporal completeness and taxonomic accuracy of species lists, made available in a traditional manner in scientific publications, has always represented a problem. These lists are invariably limited to a few taxonomic groups and do not represent up-to-date knowledge of all species and classifications. In this context, the Brazilian mega...

The limited temporal completeness and taxonomic accuracy of species lists, made available in a traditional manner in scientific publications, has always represented a problem. These lists are invariably limited to a few taxonomic groups and do not represent up-to-date knowledge of all species and classifications. In this context, the Brazilian mega...

This list provides information on all the authors and coordinators of taxa of the Taxonomic Catalog of the Brazilian Fauna (TCBF), active between 2013-2023. Furthermore, all Authors/Coordinators have been invited (via Google Forms) to serve as authors of the manuscript entitled Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil: setting the baseline knowledg...

The limited temporal completeness and taxonomic accuracy of species lists, made available in a traditional manner in scientific publications, has always represented a problem. These lists are invariably limited to a few taxonomic groups and do not represent up-to-date knowledge of all species and classifications. In this context, the Brazilian mega...

The limited temporal completeness and taxonomic accuracy of species lists, made available in a traditional manner in scientific publications, has always represented a problem. These lists are invariably limited to a few taxonomic groups and do not represent up-to-date knowledge of all species and classifications. In this context, the Brazilian mega...

The limited temporal completeness and taxonomic accuracy of species lists, made available in a traditional manner in scientific publications, has always represented a problem. These lists are invariably limited to a few taxonomic groups and do not represent up-to-date knowledge of all species and classification. In this context, the B Brazilian meg...

The reduced temporal validity of species lists made available in a traditional manner in scientific publications has always represented a problem. These lists are invariably limited to a few taxonomic groups and do not represent the up-to-date knowledge of all species and classifications. The Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil (CTFB), made publ...

Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil: se ng the baseline knowledge on the animal diversity in Brazil

Increasing empirical evidence has revealed that host-switching is more common than cospeciation in the history of parasites. Here, we investigated how the intensity of host-switching, mediated by opportunity and compatibility, affects the phylogenetic history and ecology of the parasites. We developed a theoretical model to simulate the evolution o...

Para compreender a biodiversidade atual, é essencial explorar além dos fatores ecológicos atuais e mergulhar na história evolutiva dos organismos, revelando como as variações no nível do mar podem ter influenciado a diversidade de peixes em ambientes costeiros continentais ao longo do tempo. Acesse online <https://revistabioika.org/pt/palavra-de-es...

The Stockholm Paradigm, DAMA, Ecological Fitting and Host Parasite Associations

Among species of Corbicula, only the hermaphroditic androgenetic lineages are invasive while sexual species are restricted to the native range (mainly Asia). Four androgenetic lineages of Corbicula spp. have been identified in American and European freshwater systems, with the Corbicula sp. form A/R lineage being abundant on both continents. This l...

This study aimed to enhance our understanding in monogenoid evolution by using morphological and molecular data to determine kinship relationships between species and changes in morphological structures over time. We focused on variations in characteristics among the organisms of the family Gyrodactylidae, concentrating on the phylogenetic position...

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) pose a growing threat to technological humanity. Strategies for coping with EIDs have been mostly focused on preparing for recurrences of known pathogens and reactive crisis response for all outbreaks. The DAMA protocol (Document, Assess, Monitor, Act), the policy extension of the Stockholm Paradigm (SP), adds a...

Cultural and conceptual transformation is essential for recognizing the necessity of placing pathogens in an environmental, evolutionary, and ecological context by incorporating specimens and associated informatics into a foundation for actionable information. Historically, we have been hindered by interdependent, flawed, and deeply held paradigms...

Assessing the risk a pathogen poses before there is a disease outbreak is the lynchpin of the DAMA (Document, Assess, Monitor, Act) protocol. By taking advantage of the predictive power of evolutionary conservatism and of the Stockholm Paradigm (SP) modeling platform, we can narrow our focus to particular pathogens in particular places and times, p...

This study aimed to enhance our understanding in monogenoid evolution by using morphological and molecular data to determine kinship relationships between species and changes in morphological structures over time. We focused on variations in characteristics among the organisms of the family Gyrodactylidae, concentrating on the phylogenetic position...

Speciation via host-switching is a macroevolutionary process that emerges from a microevolutionary dynamic where individual parasites switch hosts, establish a new association, and reduce reproductive contact with the original parasite lineage. Phylogenetic distance and geographic distribution of the hosts have been shown to be determinants of the...

This article sets out the essential nature of knowing the biosphere and maintaining that information in archives and natural history collections for implementing the DAMA protocol for coping proactively with the emerging infectious disease crisis

Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) are, besides a question of food safety and public health, an ecological and evolutionary issue. The recognition of this condition combined with the accumulation of evidence that pathogens are not specialists in their original hosts evidences the need for understanding how the dynamics of interaction between patho...

The emerging infectious disease (EID) crisis represents an immediate existential threat to modern humanity. Current policies aimed at coping with the EID crisis are ineffective and unsustainably expensive. They have failed because they are based on a scientific paradigm that produced the parasite paradox. The Stockholm paradigm (SP) resolves the pa...

Globally, humanity is coming to recognize the magnitude of the interactive crisis for emerging infectious disease (EID). Strategies for coping with EID have been largely in the form of reactive measures for crisis response. The DAMA protocol (Document, Assess, Monitor, Act), the operational policy extension of the Stockholm paradigm, constitutes a...

The emerging infectious disease (EID) crisis represents an immediate existential threat to modern humanity. Current policies aimed at coping with the EID crisis are ineffective and unsustainably expensive. They have failed because they are based on a scientific paradigm that produced the parasite paradox. The Stockholm paradigm (SP) resolves the pa...

Understanding the underlying mechanisms for pathogen spillover is a main quest in epidemiology. Given the complexity of multi-host systems, several factors may play a relative role in spillover dynamics. A relatively less studied factor is the internal dynamics of pathogens that result from inter-strain competition. The competitive interactions amo...

Neonates of hammerhead sharks (Sphyrnidae), Sphyrna lewini (Griffith and Smith, 1834), the sympatric cryptic species, Sphyrna gilberti Quattro et al., 2013, and their hybrids were captured in the western North Atlantic, along the coast of South Carolina, USA, between 2018 and 2019 and examined for gill monogenoids. Parasites were identified and red...

Megalodoras uranoscopus (Eigenmann & Eigenmann) (Siluriformes, Doradidae) (the giant-talking catfish or the giant-raphael catfish), from the Peruvian Amazon, hosts a new species of Cosmetocleithrum described herein as Cosmetocleithrum falsunilatum sp. n. The male copulatory organ of the new species closely resembles that of Unilatus spp. – with mul...

The unusual genetic diversity of the Omicron strain has led to speculation about its origin. The mathematical modeling platform developed for the Stockholm Paradigm (SP) indicates strongly that it has retro‐colonized humans from an unidentified non‐human mammal, likely originally infected by humans. The relationship between Omicron and all other SA...

A bstract Increasing empirical evidence has revealed that host-switching are common in the history of parasites. Still, few have explored how the evolutionary histories of hosts might influence such switches and then the evolution of parasites. Here, we investigated how the intensity of host-switching, assumed to depend on the phylogenetic distance...

Humans represent ecological super-spreaders in the dissemination and introduction of pathogens. These processes, consistent with the dynamics of the Stockholm paradigm, are exemplified in the origin and globalized distributions of SARS-CoV-2 since initial recognition in central Asia during 2019 and 2020. SARS-like viruses are not widespread in mamm...

Characithecium (Monogenoidea, Dactylogyridae) is a genus containing nine species that live on the gills of a characid clade containing genera Astyanax, Andromakhe, Psalidodon and Oligosarcus (Characiformes, Characidae) in South and Central America. Earlier studies suggest a tight coevolutionary history between these parasites and their hosts mainly...

Climate change, emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) and food security create a dangerous nexus. Habitat interfaces, assumed to be efficient buffers, are being disrupted by human activities which in turn accelerate the movement of pathogens. EIDs threaten directly and indirectly availability and access to nutritious food, affecting global security a...

Climate change, emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) and food security create a dangerous nexus. Habitat interfaces, assumed to be efficient buffers, are being disrupted by human activities which in turn accelerate the movement of pathogens. EIDs threaten directly and indirectly availability and access to nutritious food, affecting global security a...

: The unusual genetic diversity of the Omicron strain has led to speculation about its origin. The mathematical modeling platform developed for the Stockholm Paradigm (SP) indicates strongly that it has retro-colonized humans from an unidentified animal reservoir originally infected by humans. The relationship between Omicron and all other SARS-CoV...

This study evaluates through modeling the possible individual and combined effect of three populational parameters of pathogens (reproduction rate; rate of novelty emergence; and propagule size) on the colonization of new host species – putatively the most fundamental process leading to the emergence of new infectious diseases. The results are anal...

This study evaluates through modeling the possible individual and combined effect of three populational parameters of pathogens (reproduction rate; rate of novelty emergence; and propagule size) on the colonization of new host species – putatively the most fundamental process leading to the emergence of new infectious diseases. The results are anal...

Emerging infectious diseases (EID) increasingly threaten global food security and public health. Despite technological breakthroughs, we are losing the battle with (re)emerging diseases as treatment costs and production losses rise. A horizon scan of diseases of crops, livestock, seafood and food-borne illness suggests these costs are unsustainable...

This study evaluates through modeling the possible individual and combined effect of three populational parameters of pathogens (reproduction rate; rate of novelty emergence; and propagule size) on the colonization of new host species – putatively the most fundamental process leading to the emergence of new infectious diseases. The results are anal...

Laguncularia racemosa (L.) Gaertn (Combretaceae) is one of the eight tree mangrove species of the Atlantic-Caribbean-Eastern Pacific region (AEP). This species is widely distributed throughout the Americas, Caribbean and the West Coast of Africa. Understanding genetic structure allows us to elucidate the main historical and contemporary mechanisms...

Phylogenetic analyses of sequences of the 18S rDNA and MT‐CO2 gene fragments indicated that the oviparous and viviparous gyrodactylid‐like monogenoids formed independent monophyletic clades within the Order Gyrodactylidea, supporting the reinstatement of the Oogyrodactylidae and limiting the Gyrodactylidae to the viviparous species. Analyses furthe...

Despite the great interest to quantify the structure of host-parasite interaction networks, the real influence of some factors such as taxonomy, host body size and ecological opportunity remains poorly understood. In this paper, we investigate the general patterns of organization and structure of interactions in two anuran-parasite networks in the...

The Stockholm Paradigm suggests that the capacity for pathogens to be associated with a given host is related to the occurrence of specific traits possessed by the host that represent required resources for the pathogen. The capacity for a pathogen to be associated with more than one host is related to how phylogenetically widespread those same res...

Introduction On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a Global Health Emergency of international concern attendant to the emergence and spread of SARS-CoV-2, nearly two months after the first reported emergence of human cases in Wuhan, China. In the subsequent two months, global, national and local health personnel and infra...

Atopogyrodactylus n. gen. (Gyrodactylidae) is proposed for Atopogyrodactylus praecipuus n. sp. (type species by monotypy), a protandrous and oviparous gyrodactylid from the external surfaces of an unidentified bristlenose catfish Ancistrus sp. (Siluriformes: Loricariidae) from the head waters of the Rio Candeias in the State of Rondônia, Brazil. Th...

Despite the great interest to quantify the structure of ecological networks, the influence of morphological, ecological and evolutionary characteristics of the species still remains poorly understood. One of the challenging issues in ecology is how the interaction opportunity influences and provides changes to the associations between species, and...

Two species of Cosmetocleithrum Kritsky, Thatcher & Boeger, 1986 (both new) and two species of Demidospermus Suriano, 1983 (one new) are reported from the gills of the catfish Auchenipterus nuchalis, popularly known as "mapará", from the Tocantins River and tributaries, North Region of Brazil. Cosmetocleithrum berecae n. sp. differs from all other...

Biotodomellagen. nov. (Monogenoidea: Dactylogyridae) is proposed to accommodate Biotodomella mirospinatasp. nov. , found on the gills of Biotodoma cupido (Heckel, 1840) (“cara bonita” or “green-streaked eartheater”), a freshwater cichlid from the Peruvian Amazon. The new genus and species differ from other Neotropical dactylogyrids in having the ho...

Leishmania (Leishmania) infantum is the zoonotic agent of visceral leishmaniasis (VL), a disease with a global distribution. The transmission scenario of VL has been undergoing changes worldwide, with the biologic cycle invading urbanized areas and dispersing the parasites into other previously free areas. The epidemiological cycle in Brazil has di...

This study evaluated the effect of Trichlorfon treatment to control fish’s parasites on the growth, histological damage and bioaccumulation in grass carp tissues, under control conditions in laboratory. Two assays with the same experimental design were conducted with C. idella distributed in two tanks with 40L (control and treatment), each with n=1...

This study assessed the role of historical processes on the geographic isolation, molecular evolution, and morphological diversification of host-parasite populations from the southern Brazilian coast. Adult specimens of Scleromystax barbatus and Scleromystax macropterus were collected from the sub-basin of the Nhundiaquara River and the sub-basin o...

Species of Monogenoidea (Platyhelminthes) are in its majority ectoparasites of marine and freshwater fishes. Many species of the group can promote great economic losses to fish production systems worldwide. The present study describes a new species, Gyrodactylus lilianae n. sp., from the body surface, fins and barbels of a captive South American ca...

Two new species of Gyrodactylus are described from the body surface of two catfish species from southern Brazilian rivers. Gyrodactylus anaspidus n. sp. is described from the armored-catfish, Pareiorhaphis parmula (Loricariidae) and Gyrodactylus polyadenus n. sp. is described from the cascarudo, Callichthys callichthys (Callichthyidae). The new spe...

More than a century of coevolutionary thought failed to anticipate the current crisis of emerging infectious diseases. This produced the Parasite Paradox: parasites are resource specialists with restricted host ranges, and yet shifts onto relatively unrelated hosts are common in the diversification of parasite lineages and directly observable in ec...

Few studies have assessed the impact of dams on the distribution of the genetic diversity of Neotropical fish species, and some of them suggest that the genetic structure of fish metapopulations is not affected by damming. However, the effects of dams on the genetic structure of populations may hinge on the biological characteristics of the species...

Colonization of novel hosts is thought to play an important role in parasite diversification, yet little consensus has been achieved about the macroevolutionary consequences of changes in host use. Here we offer a mechanistic basis for the origins of parasite diversity by simulating lineages evolved in silico. We describe an individual‐based model...

An infectious disease has caused high mortalities in the Brazilian mangrove-land crab, Ucides cordatus. The lethargic crab disease spread northward and southward in waves from Pernambuco State in Brazil. Primary causative agent was the black yeast Exophiala cancerae, with Fonsecaea brasiliensis as a secondary, opportunistic invader. The reasons for...

Every year about 3 million tourists from around the world visit Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay´s triple border region where the Iguaçu Falls are located. Unfortunately, in recent years an increasing number of autochthonous canine and human visceral leishmaniasis (VL) cases have been reported. The parasite is Leishmania (Leishmania) infantum and it...

Ergasilus von Nordmann, 1832 is the type and the most speciose genus of Ergasilidae, with more than 150 valid species. The first species of this genus, Ergasilusiheringi Tidd, 1942, was described from the Neotropical Region, from the gills of Hopliasmalabaricus (Bloch, 1794). Since then, 35 new species of Ergasilidae have been described from the Ne...

The present study sought to identify general patterns of genetic variability and structure of fish stocks (migratory and non-migratory species) along one of the largest Brazilian rivers, the São Francisco. Given that genetic variability of populations of all organisms is governed by both present and past influences, herein we investigate both these...

Since 1997, an emergent fungal disease named lethargic crab disease (LCD) has decimated stocks of the edible mangrove land crab Ucides cordatus (Linnaeus, 1763) (Brachyura: Ocypodidae) along the Brazilian coast, threatening the mangrove ecosystem and causing socioeconomic impacts. Evidence from a variety of sources suggests that the black yeast Exo...

Parasite-host and insect-plant research have divergent traditions despite the fact that most phytophagous insects live parasitically on their host plants. In parasitology it is a traditional assumption that parasites are typically highly specialized; cospeciation between parasites and hosts is a frequently expressed default expectation. Insect-plan...