New insights to the coevolutionary relationships of host-specific monogeneans and their peri-Mediterranean cyprinid hosts
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Diversity, distribution and evolutionary history of host-specific parasite taxa is usually intimately linked with historical dispersion, diversity and evolution of their hosts. Parasites belonging to genus Dactylogyrus (Monogenea) are known for their narrow host specificity and morphological adaptations to their respecitve hosts, freshwater fish belonging to family Cyprinidae. Each cyprinid species can serve as potential host for at least one Dactylogyrus species, resulting in a high species richness of this remarkable parasitic taxa. Recently, cophylogeny has become fundamental approach in the study of co-coevolutionary host-parasite associations. Therefore, we used highly host-specific Dactylogyrus parasites as the additional tool to shed new light into phylogenetic relationships between endemic cyprinids of peri-Mediterranean region. Over years 2014 to 2018 we collected and parasitologically processed 113 cyprinid species from 7 European countries in the peri-Mediterranean region (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain). In total, 93 cyprinid species were parasitized by Dactylogyrus representing 69 species (including 18 potentially new species for science). Phylogenetic reconstruction revealed two lineages of endemic Dactylogyrus parasitizing cyprinids of Iberian Peninsula. While the first lineage was phylogenecally closely related to the clade of central European and Balkan species, the other one was more related to the north African endemic Dactylogyrus, which suggests the multiple origin of both Dactylogyrus and their cyprinid hosts in Iberian Peninsula. In regards of Dactylogyrus in Balkan and Apennine Peninsulas, our phylogenetic analyses revealed four well supported clades. These results outlined recent contacts between endemic cyprinids and species with the wide distribution range where the potential host-switch of Dactylogyrus occurred also between phylogenetically unrelated hosts. Applying cophylogenetic methods we found the significant coevolutionary signal between phylogenies of endemic Balkan and Apennine Dactylogyrus and cyprinids. The most significant coevolutionary links were detected between Dactylogyrus of Barbinae and their hosts belonging to the genera Aulopyge, Barbus and Luciobarbus. Additionally, strong coevolutioary link was also detected between D. vistulae and its respective hosts. Our findings suggest that host-switch played important role in the evolutionary history of Dactylogyrus parazitizing Balkan and Apennine cyprinids. Moreover, genetic structuration and geographic distribution of these host-specific parasites has been strongly influcenced by recent introduction of the non-native cyprinid species into peri-Mediterranean area. Preliminary analysis based on molecular data also imply that several supposedly generalist species are in fact complexes of the cryptic species and therefore, the endemic Dactylogyrus fauna is probably far more diverse than was expected. |
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