Contrasting responses of beta diversity components to environmental and host‐associated factors in insect ectoparasites

Maestri, Renan; Shenbrot, Georgy I.; Warburton, Elizabeth M.; Khokhlova, Irina S.; Krasnov, Boris R.

doi:10.1111/een.12834

Cited by 4 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…In other words, the identity of the best predictor of flea compositional turnover might be scale dependent. Comparison of this study's results with those of Krasnov et al (2019b) and Maestri et al (2020), however, suggests that predictors of flea phylogenetic turnover are scale invariant. Nevertheless, both studies at the local scale were carried out in the Palaearctic.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 44%

“…A similar pattern has been reported for chiropterans and their bat fly parasites (Eriksson et al ., 2019 ). The results of 2 studies on the phylogenetic beta-diversity of fleas were obtained at a relatively small scale (Krasnov et al ., 2019 b ; Maestri et al ., 2020 ) and do not allow answering the question about the geographic variation of predictors of parasite phylogenetic turnover at a large scale.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Phylogenetic patterns in regional flea assemblages from 6 biogeographic realms: strong links between flea and host phylogenetic turnovers and weak effects of phylogenetic originality on host specificity

2023

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We investigated phylogenetic patterns in flea assemblages from 80 regions in 6 biogeographic realms and asked whether (a) flea phylogenetic turnover is driven by host phylogenetic turnover, environmental dissimilarity or geographic distance; (b) the relative importance of these drivers differs between realms; and (c) the environmental drivers of flea phylogenetic turnover are similar to those of host phylogenetic turnover. We also asked whether the phylogenetic originality of a flea species correlates with the degree of its host specificity and whether the phylogenetic originality of a host species correlates with the diversity of its flea assemblages. We found that host phylogenetic turnover was the best predictor of flea phylogenetic turnover in all realms, whereas the effect of the environment was weaker. Environmental predictors of flea phylogenetic turnover differed between realms. The importance of spatial distances as a predictor of the phylogenetic dissimilarity between regional assemblages varied between realms. The responses of host turnover differed from those of fleas. In 4 of the 6 realms, geographic distances were substantially better predictors of host phylogenetic turnover than environmental gradients. We also found no general relationship between flea phylogenetic originality and its host specificity in terms of either host species richness or host phylogenetic diversity. We conclude that flea phylogenetic turnover is determined mainly by the phylogenetic turnover of their hosts rather than by environmental gradients. Phylogenetic patterns in fleas are manifested at the level of regional assemblages rather than at the level of individual species.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 44%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenetic patterns in regional flea assemblages from 6 biogeographic realms: strong links between flea and host phylogenetic turnovers and weak effects of phylogenetic originality on host specificity

2023

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“…Indeed, parasites experience a dual environment that differs between adult and larval stages. For larvae, the extra-host environment affects both the development of off-host life stages and the presence or absence of suitable hosts for successful transmission (Maestri et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, parasites experience a dual environment that differs between adult and larval stages. For larvae, the extra‐host environment affects both the development of off‐host life stages and the presence or absence of suitable hosts for successful transmission (Maestri et al, 2020). Seasonality of infection occurs in nematodes hosted by African buffalo (Gorsich et al, 2014) and this pattern could be explained by seasonal changes in temperature and humidity on free‐living parasite stages (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Within‐host and external environments differentially shape β‐diversity across parasite life stages

Warburton

Budischak

Jolles

et al. 2023

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Uncovering drivers of community assembly is a key aspect of learning how biological communities function. Drivers of community similarity can be especially useful in this task as they affect assemblage‐level changes that lead to differences in species diversity between habitats. Concepts of β‐diversity originally developed for use in free‐living communities have been widely applied to parasite communities to gain insight into how infection risk changes with local conditions by comparing parasite communities across abiotic and biotic gradients. Factors shaping β‐diversity in communities of immature parasites, such as larvae, are largely unknown. This is a key knowledge gap as larvae are frequently the infective life‐stage and understanding variation in these larval communities is thus key for disease prevention. Our goal was to uncover links between β‐diversity of parasite communities at different life stages; therefore, we used gastrointestinal nematodes infecting African buffalo in Kruger National Park, South Africa, to investigate within‐host and extra‐host drivers of adult and larval parasite community similarity. We employed a cross‐sectional approach using PERMANOVA that examined each worm community at a single time point to assess independent drivers of β‐diversity in larvae and adults as well as a longitudinal approach with path analysis where adult and larval communities from the same host were compared to better link drivers of β‐diversity between these two life stages. Using the cross‐sectional approach, we generally found that intrinsic, within‐host traits had significant effects on β‐diversity of adult nematode communities, while extrinsic, extra‐host variables had significant effects on β‐diversity of larval nematode communities. However, the longitudinal approach provided evidence that intrinsic, within‐host factors affected the larval community indirectly via the adult community. Our results provide key data for the comparison of community‐level processes where adult and immature stages inhabit vastly different habitats (i.e. within‐host vs. abiotic environment). In the context of parasitism, this helps elucidate host infection risk via larval stages and the drivers that shape persistence of adult parasite assemblages, both of which are useful for predicting and preventing infectious disease.

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“…In total, our data included over 35,000 records (15,000 for fleas and 20,000 for rodents) for 67 flea and 67 rodent species. The details on the surveys, field methodology and data compilation are found in Appendix S1 and earlier publications (Maestri et al., 2017, 2020). The occurrences of each species were used to construct distribution models for each species using maxent 3.4 software (Phillips et al., 2006) for each species, which were then overlaid on a gridded map of Mongolia with 0.5° × 0.5° cells, generating presence/absence matrices of fleas and rodents (separately) across grid cells (see Appendix S1 for further details).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Harrison's rule scales up to entire parasite assemblages but is determined by environmental factors

Maestri

Fiedler

Shenbrot

et al. 2020

Journal of Animal Ecology

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1. Harrison's rule states that parasite body size and the body size of their hosts tend to be positively correlated. After it was proposed a century ago, a number of studies have investigated this trend, but the support level has varied greatly between parasite/host associations. Moreover, while the rule has been tested at the individual species level, we still lack knowledge on whether Harrison's rule holds at the scale of parasite and host communities. 2. Here, we mapped flea (parasites) and rodent (hosts) body sizes across Mongolia and asked whether Harrison's rule holds for parasite/host assemblages (i.e. whether a parasite's average body size in a locality is positively correlated with its host's average body size). In addition, we attempted to disentangle complex relationships between flea size, host size and environmental factors by testing alternative hypotheses for the determinants of fleas' body size variation. 3. We gathered occurrence data for fleas and rodents from 2,370 sites across Mongolia, constructed incidence matrices for both taxa and calculated the average body sizes of fleas and their hosts over half-degree cells. Then, we applied a path analysis, accounting for spatial autocorrelation, trying to disentangle the drivers of the correlation between parasite and host body sizes. 4. We found a strong positive correlation between average flea and host size across assemblages. Surprisingly though, we found that environmental factors simultaneously affected the body sizes of both fleas and hosts in the same direction, leading to a most likely deceptive correlation between parasite and host size across assemblages. 5. We suggest that environmental factors may, to a great extent, reflect the environmental conditions inside the hosts' burrows where fleas develop and attain their adult body size, thus influencing their larval growth. Similarly, rodent body size is strongly influenced by air temperature, in the direction predicted by Bergmann's rule. If our findings are valid in other host-parasite associations, this may explain the dissenting results of both support and lack thereof for Harrison's rule.

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Contrasting responses of beta diversity components to environmental and host‐associated factors in insect ectoparasites

Cited by 4 publications

References 59 publications

Phylogenetic patterns in regional flea assemblages from 6 biogeographic realms: strong links between flea and host phylogenetic turnovers and weak effects of phylogenetic originality on host specificity

Phylogenetic patterns in regional flea assemblages from 6 biogeographic realms: strong links between flea and host phylogenetic turnovers and weak effects of phylogenetic originality on host specificity

Within‐host and external environments differentially shape β‐diversity across parasite life stages

Harrison's rule scales up to entire parasite assemblages but is determined by environmental factors

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