Natural hybridization between Ixodes ricinus and Ixodes persulcatus ticks evidenced by molecular genetics methods

Kovalev, Sergey Y.; Golovljova, Irina; Mukhacheva, Tatyana A.

doi:10.1016/j.ttbdis.2015.09.005

Cited by 61 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…In laboratory studies, pairwise combinations between I. scapularis, I. pacificus, Ixodes ricinus (L., 1758) (the castor bean tick or sheep tick), and Ixodes persulcatus (Schulze, 1930) (the taiga tick) mated readily, showing no differences in the initiation time, frequency or duration of mating between intra-and inter-species pairings, and all pairings produced hybrids (Balashov et al 1998). Although the hybrids were sterile in the laboratory setting, natural populations of sympatric I. ricinus and I. persulcatus show mixed and intermediate morphologies (Bugmyrin et al 2015(Bugmyrin et al , 2016 and the presence of up to 11% viable and fertile hybrids in these sympatric populations was subsequently confirmed by molecular methods (Kovalev et al 2016). Similarly, sympatric populations of I. persulcatus and Ixodes pavlovskyi Pomerantsev, 1946 contain up to 15% fertile hybrids and I. scapularis and Ixodes dammini Spielman, Clifford, Piesman, and Corwin, 1979 mate with heterospecifics and conspecifics indiscriminately, and indeed the species I. dammini has since been reduced to a junior synonym for I. scapularis because the two species are now considered to be conspecific (Oliver et al 1993;Chen et al 1994).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…specific (Kiszewski et al 2001) and cases of hybridization between different Ixodes species have been well documented (Balashov et al 1998;Kovalev et al 2015Kovalev et al , 2016. In laboratory studies, pairwise combinations between I. scapularis, I. pacificus, Ixodes ricinus (L., 1758) (the castor bean tick or sheep tick), and Ixodes persulcatus (Schulze, 1930) (the taiga tick) mated readily, showing no differences in the initiation time, frequency or duration of mating between intra-and inter-species pairings, and all pairings produced hybrids (Balashov et al 1998).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evidence for genetic hybridization betweenIxodes scapularisandIxodes cookei

et al. 2017

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Ixodes scapularis Say, 1821 (the black-legged tick) is becoming established in Canada. The northwards expansion of I. scapularis leads to contact between I. scapularis and Ixodes cookei Packard, 1869, a well-established tick species in Eastern Canada. Examination of I. cookei and I. scapularis collected from New Brunswick revealed ticks with ambiguous morphologies, with either a mixture or intermediate traits typical of I. scapularis and I. cookei, including in characteristics typically used as species identifiers. Genetic analysis to determine if these ticks represent hybrids revealed that four had I. cookei derived mitochondrial DNA but I. scapularis nuclear DNA. In one case, the nuclear sequence showed evidence of heterozygosity for I. scapularis and I. cookei sequences, whereas in the others, the nuclear DNA appeared to be entirely derived from I. scapularis. These data strongly suggest genetic hybridization between these two species. Ixodes cookei and hybrid ticks were readily collected from humans and companion animals and specimens infected with Borrelia burgdorferi Johnson et al., 1984, the causative agent of Lyme disease, were identified. These findings raise the issue of genetic introgression of I. scapularis genes into I. cookei and warrant reassessment of the capacity of I. cookei and I. cookei × I. scapularis hybrids to vector Borrelia infection.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence for genetic hybridization betweenIxodes scapularisandIxodes cookei

et al. 2017

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“…In such overlapping zones crossspecies mating occurs, leading to hybrid offspring that likely possess phenotypic traits of both parents. Cross-mating has not only observed between I. ricinus and I. persulcatus but also between I. persulcatus and I. pavlovskyi (Balashov Iu et al, 1998; and references therein Kovalev et al, 2015Kovalev et al, , 2016 and between I. scapularis and I. cookei in North America (Patterson et al, 2017) suggesting that cross-mating between tick species may be more frequent than once thought.…”

Section: Hybrid Ticks?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the Eurasian I. ricinus-I. persulcatus hybrid zone, up to 13% of ticks have been found to be hybrids (Kovalev et al, 2016). Such hybrids presumably arise afresh in each generation through crossspecies mating, but it is also possible that hybrids might themselves cross with either parental species for a limited number of generations (Kovalev et al, 2016).…”

Section: Hybrid Ticks?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Borrelia bavariensis: Vector Switch, Niche Invasion, and Geographical Spread of a Tick-Borne Bacterial Parasite

Margos¹,

Fingerle²,

Reynolds

2019

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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The Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato species complex currently consists of more than 20 species that utilize small vertebrate hosts as reservoirs and ticks of the genus Ixodes as vectors. The bacterial parasite species differ in their ecology (reservoir hosts, competent vectors) as well as geographical distribution. Several studies have defined reservoir host association as a driver for diversification, speciation and pattern of spatial occurrence of populations but in this review we focus on vector association and its role in diversification and speciation of Borrelia. Borrelia bavariensis, a member of the species complex, uses small mammals as reservoir hosts and can cause Lyme borreliosis in humans. Phylogeographic analysis employing both genetic and genomic data shows that this species has undergone a recent range expansion, invading Europe from its probable original range in Asia while undergoing a drastic genetic bottleneck, suggesting that the colonization of Europe was a single event. We hypothesize that this invasion-like range expansion coincided with a change in the parasite's tick vector, switching from Ixodes persulcatus in Asia to I. ricinus in Europe. Making extensive use of the ecological concept of niche, we discuss the importance of host and vector associations in defining spatial range and their possible role in speciation in the B. burgdorferi sensu lato species complex.

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“…Asian B. bavariensis are vectored by I. persulcatus, whereas the European vector is I. ricinus (see [9] for a review). As these two tick species co-occur and can even hybridize in their overlapping zone in Estonia, Latvia and Western Russia [56] , we expected that Russian B. bavariensis samples, might be genetically closer to the European isolates than the Japanese isolates, perhaps even showing that the European population might have diverged from a Russian lineage, but this was not the case. The lack of spatial structure in the Asian B. bavariensis genomes over such a large geographical scale can be explained either (i) by the co-occurrence over a long evolutionary period of many strains in the same populations due to specialization to some speci c niches (like reservoir hosts) or (ii) by recurrent migration of strains, for example carried by ticks attached to birds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High conservation combined with high plasticity: genomics and evolution of Borrelia bavariensis

Becker

Rollins

Nosenko

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background Borrelia bavariensis is one of the agents of Lyme Borreliosis (or Lyme disease) in Eurasia. The genome of the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato species complex, that includes B. bavariensis , is known to be very complex and fragmented making the assembly of whole genomes with next-generation sequencing data a challenge. Results We present a genome reconstruction for 33 B. bavariensis isolates from Eurasia based on long-read (Pacific Bioscience, for three isolates) and short-read (Illumina) data. We show that the combination of both sequencing techniques allows proper genome reconstruction of all plasmids in most cases but use of a very close reference is necessary when only short-read sequencing data is available. B. bavariensis genomes combine a high degree of genetic conservation with high plasticity: all isolates share the main chromosome and five plasmids, but the repertoire of other plasmids is highly variable. In addition to plasmid losses and gains through horizontal transfer, we also observe several fusions between plasmids. Although European isolates of B. bavariensis have little diversity in genome content, there is some geographic structure to this variation. In contrast, each Asian isolate has a unique plasmid repertoire and we observe no geographically based differences between Japanese and Russian isolates. Comparing the genomes of Asian and European populations of B. bavariensis suggests that some genes which are markedly different between the two populations may be good candidates for adaptation to the tick vector, ( Ixodes ricinus in Europe and I. persulcatus in Asia). Conclusions We present the characterization of genomes of a large sample of B. bavariensis isolates and show that their plasmid content is highly variable. This study opens the way for genomic studies seeking to understand host and vector adaptation as well as human pathogenicity in Eurasian Lyme Borreliosis agents.

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Natural hybridization between Ixodes ricinus and Ixodes persulcatus ticks evidenced by molecular genetics methods

Cited by 61 publications

References 16 publications

Evidence for genetic hybridization betweenIxodes scapularisandIxodes cookei

Evidence for genetic hybridization betweenIxodes scapularisandIxodes cookei

Borrelia bavariensis: Vector Switch, Niche Invasion, and Geographical Spread of a Tick-Borne Bacterial Parasite

High conservation combined with high plasticity: genomics and evolution of Borrelia bavariensis

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