INVESTIGADORES
LEONARDI Maria Soledad
artículos
Título:
Phylogenomic Analysis of Seal Lice Reveals Co-divergence with their Hosts
Autor/es:
LEONARDI, M.S.; S. VIRRUETA HERRERA; A. SWEET; J. NEGRETE; K. JOHNSON
Revista:
SYSTEMATIC ENTOMOLOGY (PRINT)
Editorial:
WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC
Referencias:
Lugar: Londres; Año: 2019 vol. 44 p. 699 - 708
ISSN:
0307-6970
Resumen:
Lice are considered a model system for studying the process ofcospeciation because they are obligate and permanent parasites and areoften highly host-specific. Among lice, species in the familyEchinophthiriidae (Anoplura) are unique in that they infest mammalianhosts with an amphibious lifestyle, i.e. pinnipeds and the river otter.There is evidence that the ancestor of this group infested the terrestrialancestor of pinnipeds, which suggests these parasites co-evolved withtheir hosts during the transition to marine environments. However, therehas been no previous study investigating the phylogenetic relationshipsamong sucking lice parasitizing seals and sea lions. To uncover theevolutionary history of these parasites, we obtained genomic data forAntarctophthirus microchir (from two hosts), A. carlinii, A. lobodontis, A.ogmorhini, Lepidophthirus macrorhini, and Proechinophthirus fluctus.From genomic sequence reads, we assembled >1,000 nuclear genesand used these data to infer a phylogenetic tree for these lice. We alsoused the assembled genes in combination with read-mapping to estimateheterozygosity and effective population size from individual lice. Ouranalysis supports the monophyly of lice from pinnipeds and uncoversphylogenetic relationships within the group. Surprisingly, we found thatA. carlinii, A. lobodontis, and A. ogmorhini have very little geneticdivergence among them, whereas the divergence between differentgeographic representatives of A. microchir indicate they are perhapsdifferent species. Nevertheless, our phylogeny of Echinophthiriidaesuggests these lice have consistently co-diverged with their hosts withminimal host-switching. Population genomic metrics indicate that louseeffective population size is linked to host demographics, which furtherhighlights the close association between pinnipeds and their lice.