Halmos College of Arts & Sciences, Nova Southeastern University, Dania Beach, FL, USA.
Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases, Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.
Oecologia. 2024 Feb;204(2):289-300. doi: 10.1007/s00442-023-05420-y. Epub 2023 Jul 29.
Understanding the mechanisms of parasite community assembly can be confounded by phylogenetic distance among host species. Addressing this requires focusing on parasite communities within closely related taxa. Thus, we took a macroecological approach to examining parasite community structure within Killifish species in the genus Fundulus to disentangle the effects of host phylogeny and ecological variables. We constructed a database of parasite communities within Fundulus species from 15 published and unpublished surveys covering the Atlantic coast of the US and Canada. The database was expanded by sampling sites in underrepresented provinces and states, totaling 10 Fundulus species from 57 unique geographic sites. Univariate analysis of observed parasite species richness among Fundulus populations in the dataset found that latitude, climate type, and salinity were the dominant factors determining parasite species richness. Multivariate analysis found that host species and landscape type were the most important factors in determining the similarity of parasite assemblages. Unexpectedly, parasite species richness decreased in low latitudes, and host phylogenetic distance was not found to be a significant factor in the similarity of parasite communities. These results indicate that commonly reported large-scale drivers of parasite community structure, such as latitude and phylogeny, could have diminished significance at the host genus level relative to host ecology, biogeography, and local landscape factors.
理解寄生虫群落组装的机制可能会受到宿主物种间系统发育距离的影响。解决这个问题需要关注密切相关类群内的寄生虫群落。因此，我们采用宏观生态学的方法来研究 Fundulus 属中的 Killifish 物种内的寄生虫群落结构，以厘清宿主系统发育和生态变量的影响。我们从美国和加拿大大西洋沿岸的 15 项已发表和未发表的调查中构建了一个 Fundulus 物种内寄生虫群落的数据库。通过在代表性不足的省份和州采样点，将数据库扩展到 10 个 Fundulus 物种，来自 57 个独特的地理采样点。对数据集内 Fundulus 种群中观察到的寄生虫物种丰富度的单变量分析发现，纬度、气候类型和盐度是决定寄生虫物种丰富度的主要因素。多变量分析发现，宿主物种和景观类型是决定寄生虫组合相似性的最重要因素。出乎意料的是，寄生虫物种丰富度在低纬度地区下降，而宿主系统发育距离在寄生虫群落相似性方面并未被发现是一个重要因素。这些结果表明，通常报道的寄生虫群落结构的大规模驱动因素，如纬度和系统发育，相对于宿主生态、生物地理学和当地景观因素，在宿主属水平上的重要性可能会降低。
