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扩散，进而可能使感染在不同地理区域以及宿主物种间发生传播。不过目前尚缺乏定量研究证据，表明此类宿主性状的差异确实会影响宿主-寄生虫关联的演化结局。本研究以鸟类的住白细胞虫属（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，采用系统发育比较分析方法，探究与宿主行为相关的宿主-寄生虫协同进化关系。我们重建了宿主与寄生虫的分子系统发育树，并运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间的整体一致性存在显著贡献。研究结果显示，该系统中宿主与寄生虫的系统发育树间存在显著匹配关系，但进一步分析表明，这种匹配仅源于非迁徙性寄生虫与其宿主的关联。此外我们还发现，相较于非迁徙鸟类，迁徙鸟类所携带的寄生虫遗传多样性更高。综合来看，本研究结果表明鸟类的迁徙习性可能会影响其与寄生虫的协同进化关系，同时也提示，在预测协同进化互作的结局时，宿主性状的考量具有重要意义。