Evolutionary patterns in life histories of Oxyurida.

The Oxyurida comprises some 850 known species that occur in the intestine of arthropods and vertebrates (one species in annelids). Important arthropod hosts include Diplopoda, Blattodea, Gryllotalpoidea, Passalidae, Scarabaeida and Hydrophilidae. The major vertebrate hosts are lizards, tortoises, primates, rodents and lagomorphs. An underlying characteristic of the group is haplodiploid reproduction and like many haplodiploid groups, pinworms tend to have life histories that involve high levels of inbreeding. Unlike Strongylida, Ascaridida and Spirurida, which have diversified in tissue site and life cycle as well as hosts, pinworms show little variation in these features and have radiated only across host groups. Two explanations are advanced for this. Haplodiploidy and its concomitant inbreeding may act to canalise evolutionary change, although diverse groups such as the Hymenoptera belie this. Alternatively, Strongylida, Ascaridida and Spirurida are presumed to have arisen from skin-penetrating ancestors that were forced to undergo a tissue migration before reaching their primitive tissue site, the gut. This migration demanded they adapt to a variety of tissue sites and thus acted as a preadaptation to further diversification. The Oxyurida, in contrast, probably arose using oral contaminative transmission. The lack of exposure to other tissue sites may therefore have relegated pinworms to their position in the posterior gut.