Abstract
The Trypanosoma cruzi clade is a group of parasites that comprises T. cruzi sensu lato and its closest relatives. Although several species have been confirmed phylogenetically to belong to this clade, it is uncertain how many more species can be expected to belong into this group. Here, we present the results of a survey of trypanosome parasites of the bat Artibeus jamaicensis from the Panamá Canal Zone, an important seed disperser. Using a genealogical species delimitation approach, the Poisson tree processes (PTP), we tentatively identified five species of trypanosomes – all belonging to the T. cruzi clade. A small monophyletic group of three putative Trypanosoma species places at the base of the clade phylogeny, providing evidence for at least five independent colonization events of these parasites into the New World. Artibeus jamaicensis presents a high diversity of these blood parasites and is the vertebrate with the highest number of putative trypanosome species reported from a single locality. Our results emphasize the need for continued efforts to survey mammalian trypanosomes.
Highlights
How to separate one species from the other – species delimitation – is a central problem in organismal biology, and the complexity of the argument increases when dealing with potentially cryptic species
Phylogenetic relationships The topology of both the Bayesian and maximum likelihood trees largely agree, except with the placement of the most basal species of the T. cruzi clade, which was either Trypanosoma livingstonei, the monophyletic group consisting of three lineages of Panamanian bat parasites, or the group formed by the two Australian trypanosomes (Figure 1)
Species delimitation The Poisson tree processes (PTP) model identified a total of five putative species of Trypanosoma in the samples of Artibeus jamaicensis from Panama (Figure 2)
Summary
How to separate one species from the other – species delimitation – is a central problem in organismal biology, and the complexity of the argument increases when dealing with potentially cryptic species. Species delimitation relies on morphological characters and in similarity of DNA sequences, and often the chosen criteria can be arbitrary and misleading. This is true for eukaryotic microbes where morphologies could be conserved and where distinctive characters are scarce or at least not easy to obtain [1]. Novel approaches that are based exclusively in gene genealogies, such as coalescent species delimitation may offer an alternative to this long-standing problem [2]. Poisson tree processes (PTP), a new model for coalescent species delimitation has been proposed [3]. We are interested in using PTP to explore the diversity of trypanosome parasites in a common Neotropical bat species, Artibeus jamaicensis
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