Phylogeography and cryptic species structure of a locally adapted parasite in New Zealand

Feijen, Frida; Zajac, Natalia; Vorburger, Christoph; Blasco‐Costa, Isabel; Jokela, Jukka

doi:10.1111/mec.16570

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 108 publications

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“…For example, 95% of the infections in the shallow‐water margin of Lake Alexandrina were found to be A. winterbourni (where we collected the snails for the current study) while the—so far undescribed— Atriophallophorus sp. was more frequent than A. winterbourni in deeper habitat zones (Feijen et al, 2022 ). This could be explained if A. winterbourni manipulates the host to travel to shallow water while Atriophallophorus sp.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parasite infection and the movement of the aquatic snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum along a depth cline

Feijen

Buser

Klappert

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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Parasite species that use two or more host species during their life cycle depend on successful transmission between these species. These successive host species may have different habitat requirements. For example, one host species may be aquatic while the other is terrestrial. To overcome this complicating factor in transmission, a wide diversity of parasite species have adaptations that alter the habitat preference in one host species to facilitate transmission to the next host species. Two common trematode parasites in New Zealand, Atriophallophorus winterbourni and Notocotylus spp., both have a life cycle with two host species. The aquatic snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum is the intermediate host, from which the parasites require transmission to dabbling ducks or other waterfowl. Of these parasites, A. winterbourni is most frequently found in snails from the shallow‐water margin. This may indicate parasite‐induced movement of infected snails into the foraging habitat of dabbling ducks. To test whether the parasites manipulate the snails to move into shallow water, we stretched tubular mesh cages across depth‐specific ecological habitat zones in a lake. Both infected and healthy snails were released into the cages. After 11 days, significantly higher infection frequencies of A. winterbourni were retrieved from the shallowest end of the cages, while Notocotylus spp. frequencies did not vary with depth. The hypothesis that A. winterbourni induces its snail host to move into the shallow‐water habitat cannot be rejected based on the experimental results. Although further research is needed to address alternative explanations, the depth preference of infected snails may be due to a parasite adaptation that facilitates trophic transmission of parasites to dabbling ducks.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parasite infection and the movement of the aquatic snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum along a depth cline

Feijen

Buser

Klappert

et al. 2023

Ecology and Evolution

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Effective number of different populations: A new concept and how to use it

Kosman,

Feijen,

Jokela

2024

Ecology and Evolution

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Widely used methods to assess population genetic structure and differentiation rely on independence of marker loci. Following the assumption, the common metrics, for example FST, evaluate genetic structure by averaging across loci. Common metrics do not use information in the associations among loci at the individual level and are often criticized for failing to measure true differentiation even when loci segregate independently. We introduce a new concept to measure β‐variation (Effective Number of Different Populations, ENDP). It requires the following steps: (a) calculation of a proper dissimilarity between genetic profiles of all individuals; (b) calculation of suitable pairwise distances between the samples based on the dissimilarities between individuals; (c) calculation of diversity (in terms of Hill numbers) and dispersion of samples based on the pairwise distances between samples; (d) ENDP is then estimated by combining the diversity and dispersion. ENDP estimates β‐variation independently of estimates of within‐sample α‐variation, although β‐ and α‐estimates could statistically correlate to some extent. This new concept differs from the existing standard where β‐diversity is estimated based on the “partition of variation” scheme ( or ), so that estimates of β‐diversity directly depend on the corresponding values of α‐diversity. ENDP estimates are obtained by evaluating information in the available genetic profiles of individuals including association of loci. Therefore, ENDP can be used even in an absence of panmixia. We illustrate the use of this concept by analyzing the population genetic structure of a sexual species (a trematode parasite) occupying connected populations across a broad geographic area. The analysis is complicated by geographically coexisting cryptic species and the potential mixed‐mating system of this hermaphroditic parasite. Analyses with subsampled data demonstrated that ENDP estimates are robust. Number of loci used for genotyping has much stronger effect on variation of point ENDP estimates than sample size.

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Phylogeography and cryptic species structure of a locally adapted parasite in New Zealand

et al. 2022

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The phylogeographic patterns of many taxa on New Zealand's South Island are characterized by disjunct distributions that have been attributed to Pleistocene climatic cycles and the formation of the Southern Alps. Pleistocene glaciation has been implicated in shaping the contemporary genetic differentiation between populations of the aquatic snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum. We investigated whether similar phylogeographic patterns exist for the snail's locally adapted trematode parasite, Atriophallophorus winterbourni. We found evidence for a barrier to gene‐flow in sympatry between cryptic, but ecologically divergent species. When focusing on the most common of these species, disjunct geographic distributions are found for mitochondrial lineages that diverged during the Pleistocene. The boundary between these distributions is found in the central part of the South Island and is reinforced by low cross‐alpine migration. Further support for a vicariant origin of the phylogeographic pattern was found when assessing nuclear multilocus SNP data. Nuclear and mitochondrial population differentiation was concordant in pattern, except for populations in a potential secondary contact zone. Additionally, we found larger than expected differentiation between nuclear‐ and mitochondrial‐based empirical Bayes FST estimates (global FST: 0.02 vs. 0.39 for nuclear and mitochondrial data, respectively). Population subdivision is theoretically expected to be stronger for mitochondrial genomes due to a smaller effective population size, but the strong difference here, together with mitonuclear discordance in a putative contact zone, is potentially indicative of divergent gene flow of nuclear and mitochondrial genomes.

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Phylogeography and cryptic species structure of a locally adapted parasite in New Zealand

Cited by 4 publications

References 108 publications

Parasite infection and the movement of the aquatic snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum along a depth cline

Parasite infection and the movement of the aquatic snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum along a depth cline

Effective number of different populations: A new concept and how to use it

Phylogeography and cryptic species structure of a locally adapted parasite in New Zealand

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