Parasite communities are similar to free-living communities; decay of similarity over geographic distance, theory of island biogeography, species-area relationships and nestedness have been documented in both communities. Ecological succession has been studied in free-living communities but has rarely been examined in parasite communities. We use seriation with replication to test the hypothesis that succession of parasite community structure is deterministic, thus developing throughout consecutive changes along the fish ontogeny, via a seriated pattern. 12,306 marine fishes (95 species) were studied. In 40 species, a seriated pattern was detected; 25 had a tendency toward a seriated pattern, and for 31 species, succession was at random. Age-classes for each host species explained deterministic successional patterns for whole parasite communities and ectoparasites. Richness and number of age-classes explained this pattern for endoparasites. Seriated successional community pattern was evident for parasite communities of long-lived marine fish, indicating that parasite communities follow sequential changes over time, like many free-living communities.

A sample of 12,306 marine teleost fish belonging to 95 species from the Atlantic and Pacific oceans were obtained from local fishermen from Brazil (Rio de Janeiro), the Gulf of Mexico (Yucatan Peninsula: three localities) and Portugal (Madeira Islands) (samples of two populations of Scomber colias  Gmelin, 1789 were analyzed, one from Portugal; Madeira Islands and another from Rio de Janeiro). Samples from the Pacific Ocean were from Chile (five localities) and Peru (two localities). Metazoan parasites were collected according traditional techniques in parasitology. Deterministic sucession was evaluated using seriation with replication to test the hypothesis that succession of parasite community structure is deterministic, thus developing throughout consecutive changes along the fish ontogeny, via a seriated pattern using seriation with replication test of the RELATE analysis implemented in PRIMER 6