Biogeographic history of pigeons and doves drives the origin and diversification of their parasitic body lice
Creators: name: Sweet, Andrew
name: Doña Reguera, Jorge
name: Johnson, Kevin
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Phylogenomics
cophylogenetics
historical biogeography
Columbidae
Goniodidae

description: Despite their extensive diversity and ecological importance, the history of diversification for most groups of parasitic organisms remains relatively understudied. Elucidating broad macroevolutionary patterns of parasites is challenging, often limited by the availability of samples, genetic resources, and knowledge about ecological relationships with their hosts. In this study, we explore the macroevolutionary history of parasites by focusing on parasitic body lice from doves. Building on extensive knowledge of ecological relationships and previous phylogenomic studies of their avian hosts, we tested specific questions about the evolutionary origins of the body lice of doves, leveraging whole genome data sets for phylogenomics. Specifically, we sequenced whole genomes from 68 samples of dove body lice, including representatives of all body louse genera from 51 host taxa. From these data, we assembled >2,300 nuclear genes to estimate dated phylogenetic relationships among body lice and several outgroup taxa. The resulting phylogeny of body lice was well supported, although some branches had conflicting signal across the genome. We then reconstructed ancestral biogeographic ranges of body lice and compared the body louse phylogeny to phylogeny of doves, and also to a previously published phylogeny of the wing lice of doves. Divergence estimates placed the origin of body lice in the late Oligocene. Body lice likely originated in Australasia and dispersed with their hosts during the early Miocene, with subsequent codivergence and host switching throughout the world. Notably, this evolutionary history is very similar to that of dove wing lice, despite the stronger dispersal capabilities of wing lice compared to body lice. Our results highlight the central role of the biogeographic history of host organisms in driving the evolutionary history of their parasites across time and geographic space.
description: Funding provided by: National Science FoundationROR ID: https://ror.org/021nxhr62Award Number: 1239788
Funding provided by: National Science FoundationROR ID: https://ror.org/021nxhr62Award Number: 1342604
Funding provided by: National Science FoundationROR ID: https://ror.org/021nxhr62Award Number: 1925487
Funding provided by: National Science FoundationROR ID: https://ror.org/021nxhr62Award Number: 1926919
Funding provided by: European CommissionROR ID: https://ror.org/00k4n6c32Award Number: H2020-MSCA-IF-201
Funding provided by: Arkansas Biosciences InstituteROR ID: https://ror.org/04ptmx344Award Number: 
Funding provided by: Arkansas State UniversityROR ID: https://ror.org/006pyvd89Award Number:
description: These data are associated with a phylogenomic analysis of individual samples of lice sequenced with whole genome sequencing. The data include voucher photographs of the individual specimens, resulting phylogenetic trees from nuclear and mitochondrial sequences, and relevant input and output files from downstream analyses (historical biogeography, cophylogenetic analysis).