Parasites, symbionts and microorganisms infecting neohelice granulata

Abstract

We present an overview of the viruses, bacteria, parasites and metazoan symbionts that use Neohelice granulata as host. Several earlier reviews have covered crustacean diseases in general or only widely distributed species such as, for example, the blue crab Callinectes sapidus or the invasive green crab Carcinus maenas, but to date, there has been no compilation of the parasites of the burrowing crab N. granulata. This crab is a dominant species in the southwest Atlantic marshes and plays a key role as a host in several parasite life histories. This chapter aims to review the information published so far and include some symbiotic organisms that have not been reported previously.