A robust understanding of what drives parasite β-diversity is an essential step towards explaining what limits pathogens' geographical spread. We used a novel global dataset (latitude −39.8 to 61.05 and longitude −117.84 to 151.49) on helminths of anurans to investigate how the relative roles of climate, host composition and spatial distance to parasite β-diversity vary with spatial scale (global, Nearctic and Neotropical), parasite group (nematodes and trematodes) and host taxonomic subset (family). We found that spatial distance is the most important driver of parasite β-diversity at the global scale. Additionally, we showed that the relative effects of climate concerning distance increase at the regional scale when compared with the global scale and that trematodes are generally more responsive to climate than nematodes. Unlike previous studies done at the regional scale, we did not find an effect of host composition on parasite β-diversity. Our study presents a new contribution to parasite macroecological theory, evidencing spatial and taxonomic contingencies of parasite β-diversity patterns, which are related to the zoogeographical realm and host taxonomic subset, respectively.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Infectious disease macroecology: parasite diversity and dynamics across the globe’.

深入了解是什么驱动了寄生虫 β 多样性是解释限制病原体地理传播的重要一步。我们使用了一个关于无尾类蠕虫的新型全球数据集（纬度 -39.8 至 61.05 和经度 -117.84 至 151.49）来研究气候、宿主组成和空间距离对寄生虫 β 多样性的相对作用如何随空间尺度（全球、近北冰洋和新热带）、寄生虫组（线虫和吸虫）和宿主分类子集（科）。我们发现空间距离是全球范围内寄生虫β多样性的最重要驱动因素。此外，我们表明，与全球尺度相比，气候对距离的相对影响在区域尺度上有所增加，并且吸虫通常比线虫对气候更敏感。与之前在区域范围内进行的研究不同，我们没有发现宿主组成对寄生虫 β 多样性的影响。我们的研究对寄生虫宏观生态学理论做出了新的贡献，证明了寄生虫 β 多样性模式的空间和分类偶然性，它们分别与动物地理领域和宿主分类子集有关。

本文是主题问题“传染病宏观生态学：全球寄生虫多样性和动态”的一部分。