Phylogeny of quill mites of the family Syringophilidae (Acari: Prostigmata) based on their external morphology

Abstract

Abstract. External morphological characters were used to reconstruct a phylogeny of the mite family Syringophilidae (Acariformes: Cheyletoidea), which are permanent parasites inhabiting the quills of bird feathers. A total of 53 syringophilid genera and 79 characters were included in the data matrix; maximum parsimony (MP) and Bayesian analyses (BA) were performed to determine their phylogenetic relationships. The consensus of unweighted MP trees was weakly resolved. Only four generic groups were recognized: Aulonastus + Krantziaulonastus (i) and (Creagonycha + Kethleyana) + (Megasyringophilus + Selenonycha) (ii) -both with low Bremer support (BS 1); the subfamily Picobiinae -Picobia, Calamincola, Columbiphilus (Neopicobia + Rafapicobia) (BS 12) (iii) and Psittaciphilus generic group -(Meitingsunes + Psittaciphilus) (Peristerophila + (Neoperisterophila + (Castosyringophilus + Terratosyringophilus))) (BS 2) (iv). BA revealed a consensus tree with a topology similar to MP. The two main groups recognized by MP, the subfamily Picobiinae and Psittaciphilus, both received the highest support of 1; while two other groups recognized by MP -Aulonastus + Krantziaulonastus and (Creagonycha + Kethleyana) + (Megasyringophilus + Selenonycha) received relatively low support of 0.73-74 and 0.76-77, respectively. The consensus of re-weighted MP trees was almost fully resolved but, the majority of the generic groups, excluding the Picobiinae and Psittaciphilus were supported by just a few non-unique synapomorphies with a high probability of homoplastic origin. The most intriguing result is the paraphyly of the Syringophilinae in respect to picobiines. The pattern of the re-weighted tree demonstrates only patches of parallel evolution at the level of syringophilid genera and bird orders. Perhaps horizontal shifts on phylogenetically distant hosts and colonization of quill (calamus) types other than primaries and secondaries were also important in the evolution of the syringophilids.

Tanopicobia gen. nov., a new genus of quill mites, its phylogenetic placement in the subfamily Picobiinae (Acariformes: Syringophilidae) and picobiine relationships with avian hosts

“…The heuristic search produced two shortest trees having length 61 steps and standard indices as follows: CI = 0.689, RI = 0.661, RC = 0.455, HI = 0.311 (uninformative characters included). Strict consensus of these trees is shown in Fig 3. The monophyly of subfamily Picobiinae seems to be obvious (see also [29]), but the position of the enigmatic genus Calamincola in relation to other genera is still questionable (Fig 4A and 4B). The analysis shows that all picobiine genera (excl.…”

“…Based on phylogenetic analysis of the family Syringophilidae, the picobiines are placed in the core of the syringophilid tree, and the subfamily Syringophilinae is paraphyletic with respect to this group [29]. They are considerably more morphologically specialized than syringophilines and possess some advanced features like physogastry, which together with K reproductive strategy (few, but large eggs laid by a female [5]) probably allows them to occupy successfully small, but very numerous and always accessible quills of the contour (body) feathers [29]. Thus, picobiines are probably able to effectively avoid competition with other syringophilids and form an evolutionary line parallel to the syringophilines.…”

“…It is worth to note that monoxenous C. lobatus represents the only species of the picobiine mite able to infest the quills of wing feathers, whereas all other genera occur entirely in contour feathers [1,3,4,24]. It is possible that the wing feathers, i.e., primaries and secondaries, are the ancestral type of syringophilid habitat, as the majority of the family Syringophilidae representatives are associated with the quills of these feathers [29][30][31][32]. Despite mites of the subfamily Picobiinae mostly dwell in the contour feathers, they possibly originally lived in wing quills [29]; thus, the archaic genus Calamincola could represent the "living fossil" among the syringophilid mites, [21].…”

“…It is possible that the wing feathers, i.e., primaries and secondaries, are the ancestral type of syringophilid habitat, as the majority of the family Syringophilidae representatives are associated with the quills of these feathers [29][30][31][32]. Despite mites of the subfamily Picobiinae mostly dwell in the contour feathers, they possibly originally lived in wing quills [29]; thus, the archaic genus Calamincola could represent the "living fossil" among the syringophilid mites, [21]. Interaction weight depicts a number of picobiine mite species parasitizing particular host order (Table 1).…”

New taxa of the family Syringophilidae (Acari: Prostigmata) from African barbets and woodpeckers (Piciformes: Lybiidae, Picidae)

“…Mites of the family Syringophilidae (Acari: Prostigmata) are permanent and highly specialized parasites of birds living inside the quills of feathers (Kethley 1970). To date, this family includes over 290 species grouped in 56 genera and recorded from over 380 bird species belonging to 23 orders (Skoracki et al 2012c(Skoracki et al , 2013a. Despite the Ethiopian region has a rich ornithofauna, the knowledge on bird syringophilids of the region is relatively poorly known (Skoracki et al 2012), where only 55 quill mite species from 70 hosts have been described from this region until now (Fain et al 2000;Skoracki and Hromada 2013;Skoracki et al 2011Skoracki et al , 2012bSkoracki et al , c, 2013b.…”