10.5061/DRYAD.F29Q7
Jenkins, Tania
Natural Environment Research Council
Owens, Ian P. F.
Data from: Biogeography of avian blood parasites (Leucocytozoon spp.) in
two resident hosts across Europe: phylogeographic structuring or the
abundance-occupancy relationship?
Dryad
dataset
2011
Leucocytozoon spp.
Parasitology
Host Parasite Interactions
Coevolution
2011-06-07T21:14:10Z
2011-06-07T21:14:10Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2011.05221.x
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Relationships between hosts and parasites represent complex co-evolving
systems that can vary both temporally and spatially. This variation may
contribute to different co-evolutionary outcomes, ranging from highly
geographically structured parasite populations comprised of specialist
lineages that are locally abundant but have restricted global occupancy,
to geographically unstructured parasite populations comprised of abundant
generalists with broad global occupancy. Here, we present results from a
large biogeographic study of the avian blood parasites of two sedentary
host species, conducted at nine sites across Europe in a single year. The
aim was to determine whether the parasite lineages were geographically and
genetically structured across Europe, which could imply local adaptation.
Employing molecular methods, we found a large diversity of parasites, and
although overall prevalence varied greatly, the parasites were not
genetically structured across Europe. Several measures of local parasite
abundance were associated with the number of sites that the lineage
occurred in, which is consistent with the macroecological phenomenon of
the abundance-occupancy relationship. Taken together, our results show
that parasite dispersal is somewhat uncoupled to that of the host in this
system: we suggest that broad host and/or vector preference may play an
important role in determining the distribution of these parasites and in
affecting host-parasite coevolution in this system.
Jenkins_Leuco_data
Sweden
Belgium
UK
Portugal
Germany
Spain