Avian host composition, local speciation and dispersal drive the regional assembly of avian malaria parasites in South American birds

FECCHIO, ALAN; BELL, JEFFREY A.; PINHEIRO, RAFAEL B.P.; CUETO, VICTOR R.; GOROSITO, CRISTIAN A.; LUTZ, HOLLY L.; GAIOTTI, MILENE G.; PAIVA, LUCIANA V.; FRANÇA, LEONARDO F.; TOLEDO?LIMA, GUILHERME; TOLENTINO, MARIANA; PINHO, JOÃO B.; TKACH, VASYL V.; FONTANA, CARLA S.; GRANDE, JUAN MANUEL; SANTILLÁN, MIGUEL A.; CAPARROZ, RENATO; ROOS, ANDREI L.; BESSA, RAFAEL; NOGUEIRA, WAGNER; MOURA, THIAGO; NOLASCO, ERICA C.; COMICHE, KIBA J.M.; KIRCHGATTER, KARIN; GUIMARÃES, LILIAN O.; DISPOTO, JANICE H.; MARINI, MIGUEL Â.; WECKSTEIN, JASON D.; BATALHA?FILHO, HENRIQUE; COLLINS, MICHAEL D.

MOLECULAR ECOLOGY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2019 vol. 28 p. 2681 - 2693

0962-1083

Identifying the ecological factors that shape parasite distributions remains acentral goal in disease ecology. These factors include dispersal capability, environmentalfilters and geographic distance. Using 520 haemosporidian parasitegenetic lineages recovered from 7,534 birds sampled across tropical and temperateSouth America, we tested (a) the latitudinal diversity gradient hypothesisand (b) the distance?decay relationship (decreasing proportion of shared speciesbetween communities with increasing geographic distance) for this host?parasitesystem. We then inferred the biogeographic processes influencing the diversityand distributions of this cosmopolitan group of parasites across South America.We found support for a latitudinal gradient in diversity for avian haemosporidianparasites, potentially mediated through higher avian host diversity towardsthe equator. Parasite similarity was correlated with climate similarity, geographicdistance and host composition. Local diversification in Amazonian lineages followedby dispersal was the most frequent biogeographic events reconstructedfor haemosporidian parasites. Combining macroecological patterns and biogeographicprocesses, our study reveals that haemosporidian parasites are capableof circumventing geographic barriers and dispersing across biomes, although constrainedby environmental filtering. The contemporary diversity and distributionsof haemosporidian parasites are mainly driven by historical (speciation) and ecological(dispersal) processes, whereas the parasite community assembly is largelygoverned by host composition and to a lesser extent by environmental conditions.