Data from: Migratory behavior of birds affects their coevolutionary relationship with blood parasites

Host traits, such as migratory behavior, could facilitate the dispersal of disease causing parasites, potentially leading to the transfer of infections both across geographic areas and between host species. There is however, little quantitative information on whether variation in such host attributes do indeed affect the evolutionary outcome of host-parasite associations. Here, we employ Leucocytozoon blood parasites of birds, a group of parasites closely related to avian malaria, to study host-parasite coevolution in relation to host behavior using a phylogenetic comparative approach. We reconstruct the molecular phylogenies of both the hosts and parasites and use cophylogenetic tools to assess whether each host-parasite association contributes significantly to the overall congruence between the two phylogenies. We find evidence for a significant fit between host and parasite phylogenies in this system, but show that this is due only to associations between non-migrant parasites and their hosts. We also show that migrant bird species harbor a greater genetic diversity of parasites compared with non-migrant species. Taken together, these results suggest that the migratory habits of birds could influence their coevolutionary relationship with their parasites, and that consideration of host traits is important in predicting the outcome of coevolutionary interactions.

宿主性状（如迁徙行为）可促进致病寄生虫的传播，进而可能实现感染在不同地理区域间以及宿主物种间的转移。然而，目前尚缺乏相关定量研究以阐明此类宿主属性的变异是否确实会影响宿主-寄生虫关联的演化结局。本研究以鸟类的住白细胞虫（Leucocytozoon）血液寄生虫——一类与禽疟原虫亲缘关系密切的寄生虫类群——为研究对象，采用系统发育比较方法，探究宿主行为相关的宿主-寄生虫共演化机制。我们分别重建宿主与寄生虫的分子系统发育关系，并利用共系统发育分析工具，评估每一组宿主-寄生虫关联是否对两类系统发育树整体的一致性存在显著贡献。本研究发现该系统中宿主与寄生虫的系统发育树存在显著契合，但进一步分析表明，这种契合仅源于非迁徙性寄生虫与其宿主的关联。此外，我们还发现相较于非迁徙性鸟类，迁徙性鸟类宿主所携带的寄生虫遗传多样性更高。综合来看，上述结果表明鸟类的迁徙习性可能会影响其与寄生虫的共演化关系，同时也提示，在预测共演化互作的结局时，宿主性状的考量至关重要。