Fig. 6.

Example of asymmetry of interactions as observed in all host parasite records available from FishPest dataset (Strona and Lafferty, 2012). The graph shows the relationship between the maximum specificity of the parasites using a certain host species, and the parasite richness on that host species. Boxplots correspond to different classes of hosts identified on the basis of the maximum specificity of their parasites. Thus, the first boxplot provides information on parasite species richness of all fish species whose most specific parasite uses just one host. It is apparent that specific parasites tend to use hosts harboring many parasites, while species-poor parasitofaunas are often composed by generalist parasites. Boxes indicate first and third quartiles, whiskers indicate range values, and horizontal lines indicate median values.