Abstract
Feather mites are the most common ectosymbionts on birds. These obligatory symbionts are mainly transmitted during their host’s parental care, which creates high host specificity. Due to this intimate relationship, it is thought that their geographic distribution is restricted by their host distribution, or that a host species harbors the same mite composition across its whole range. However, our knowledge regarding the geographic distribution of feather mites remains scarce, with only a few studies indicating disconnections between mite and host distributions, especially in widespread hosts. Here, we investigate the feather mites distribution on four tanager species, three widespread – Thraupis sayaca (L.), T. palmarum (Wied), and Stilpnia cayana (L.) from Northern and Southern Brazil; and the Amazonian T. episcopus (L.). Feather mites were identified using the molecular barcode marker COX-1 using K2P genetic distances. We found a strong genetic structure between Northern and Southern populations of tanagers of more than 10%, even among conspecific hosts. Therefore, the mite distribution on Brazilian tanagers is predominantly shaped by geography rather than by host species. These features in turn reflect historical horizontal transmissions among the hosts, suggesting a high potential for frequent host switches in these symbionts.
Highlights
Analgoidean feather mites (Sarcoptiformes: Analgoidea) are the most abundant ectosymbionts associated with passerine birds (Aves: Passeriformes) (Gaud & Atyeo 1996)
Does a feather mite distribution mirror that of its host? Does a host species have the same set of feather mites across its whole distribution? Only a few studies addressed those questions; in general they indicate that the feather mite assemblage on a bird species may be affected by climatic variables, such as humidity and temperature (Grossi & Proctor 2021; Meléndez et al 2014); or reflect vicariance due to historical isolation of host populations (Dabert & Mironov 1999)
In ubiquitous hosts spread by humans, such as rock pigeons, Columba livia Gmelin, 1789 and domestic chickens, Gallus gallus domesticus (L., 1758), mite assemblages apparently change in new localities, indicating that some mite species have been acquired in recent events of interaction with native and phylogenetically similar host species (Gaud 1992)
Summary
Analgoidean feather mites (Sarcoptiformes: Analgoidea) are the most abundant ectosymbionts associated with passerine birds (Aves: Passeriformes) (Gaud & Atyeo 1996). As for feather mites on naturally widespread host species, i.e. generalist hosts with high adaptive plasticity, a molecular identification of mites is often required to investigate their patterns of distribution, either for a proper identification of different mite haplotypes across different localities, as for the identification of potential cryptic species (Doña et al 2015). Here we investigate the preliminary distribution of feather mites on tanagers (Thraupidae Cabanis, 1847), comparing samples from Brazilian Northern and Southern territories.
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