Abstract

Characterizing the diversity and structure of host–parasite communities is crucial to understanding their eco-evolutionary dynamics. Malaria and related haemosporidian parasites are responsible for fitness loss and mortality in bird species worldwide. However, despite exhibiting the greatest ornithological biodiversity, avian haemosporidians from Neotropical regions are quite unexplored. Here, we analyze the genetic diversity of bird haemosporidian parasites (Plasmodium and Haemoproteus) in 1,336 individuals belonging to 206 bird species to explore for differences in diversity of parasite lineages and bird species across 5 well-differentiated Peruvian ecoregions. We detected 70 different haemosporidian lineages infecting 74 bird species. We showed that 25 out of the 70 haplotypes had not been previously recorded. Moreover, we also identified 81 new host–parasite interactions representing new host records for these haemosporidian parasites. Our outcomes revealed that the effective diversity (as well as the richness, abundance, and Shannon–Weaver index) for both birds and parasite lineages was higher in Amazon basin ecoregions. Furthermore, we also showed that ecoregions with greater diversity of bird species also had high parasite richness, hence suggesting that host community is crucial in explaining parasite richness. Generalist parasites were found in ecoregions with lower bird diversity, implying that the abundance and richness of hosts may shape the exploitation strategy followed by haemosporidian parasites. These outcomes reveal that Neotropical region is a major reservoir of unidentified haemosporidian lineages. Further studies analyzing host distribution and specificity of these parasites in the tropics will provide important knowledge about phylogenetic relationships, phylogeography, and patterns of evolution and distribution of haemosporidian parasites.

中文翻译：

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秘鲁不同陆地生态区鸟类血孢子虫的多样性和宿主组合

摘要

表征宿主-寄生虫群落的多样性和结构对于了解其生态进化动态至关重要。疟疾和相关的血孢子虫寄生虫是造成全世界鸟类健康损失和死亡的原因。然而，尽管展示了最大的鸟类生物多样性，但来自新热带地区的鸟类血孢子虫还没有被探索过。在这里，我们分析鸟类血孢子虫寄生虫（疟原虫和血孢子虫）的遗传多样性。) 在属于 206 种鸟类的 1,336 个人中探索 5 个分化良好的秘鲁生态区的寄生虫谱系和鸟类多样性的差异。我们检测到 70 种不同的血孢子虫谱系感染了 74 种鸟类。我们发现 70 种单倍型中有 25 种以前没有被记录过。此外，我们还确定了 81 种新的宿主-寄生虫相互作用，代表这些血孢子虫寄生虫的新宿主记录。我们的研究结果表明，亚马逊流域生态区鸟类和寄生虫谱系的有效多样性（以及丰富度、丰度和香农-韦弗指数）更高。此外，我们还表明，鸟类种类较多的生态区也具有较高的寄生虫丰富度，因此表明宿主群落对于解释寄生虫的丰富度至关重要。在鸟类多样性较低的生态区发现了通才寄生虫，这意味着宿主的丰富性和丰富性可能会影响血孢子虫寄生虫的开发策略。这些结果表明，新热带地区是不明血孢子谱系的主要储存库。进一步研究分析热带地区这些寄生虫的宿主分布和特异性，将提供有关血孢子虫寄生虫的系统发育关系、系统地理学以及进化和分布模式的重要知识。