The weaker sex: Male lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) with blue color polymorphism are more burdened by parasites than are other sex–color combinations ...

• Main Authors: Wood, Chelsea, Leslie, Katie, Greene, Alanna, Lam, Laurel, Basnett, Bonnie, Hamilton, Scott, Samhouri, Jameal
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2021
• Subjects: FOS: Biological sciences; color variation; Fisheries; metazoan parasites; Parasitism; phenotypic covariation; infectious disease transmission; Hexagrammidae; US west coast; Yakutat; Alaska
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.83bk3j9sr; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.83bk3j9sr

The unusual blue color polymorphism of lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) is the subject of much speculation but little empirical research; ~20% of lingcod individuals exhibit this striking blue color morph, which is discrete from and found within the same populations as the more common brown morph. In other species, color polymorphisms are intimately linked with host–parasite interactions, which led us to ask whether blue coloration in lingcod might be associated with parasitism, either as cause or effect. To test how color and parasitism are related in this host species, we performed parasitological dissection of 89 lingcod individuals collected across more than 26 degrees of latitude from Alaska, Washington, and California, USA. We found that male lingcod carried 1.89 times more parasites if they were blue than if they were brown, whereas there was no difference in parasite burden between blue and brown female lingcod. Blue individuals of both sexes had lower hepatosomatic index (i.e., relative liver weight) ... : Lingcod collection Lingcod (n = 2,251) were collected between 2015 and 2017 using hook-and-line methods from chartered commercial passenger fishing vessels (CPFVs) from Yakutat, Alaska to San Diego, California, USA (54°30'N–34°30’N). The following seven regions were broadly identified: Southeast Alaska (54°30'N–59°48'N), Puget Sound and coastal Washington (46°16’N–49°N), Oregon (42°N–46°16’N), northern California (38°02’N–42°N), central California (34°30’N–38°02’N), and southern California (32°32’N–34°30’N; Figure 2). Note that samples for parasitological analysis were drawn from only four of these seven regions, spanning most of the geographic range: Southeast Alaska, Washington, northern California, and southern California. Three to four fishing ports were selected per region (n = 24 ports total) based on location and accessibility of CPFVs. To ensure representation of lingcod across a wide range of size and age classes, we sampled shallow (<200 ft) and deep (200–550 ft) nearshore and offshore rocky ...