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Title: Molecular systematics and Holarctic phylogeography of cestodes of the genus Anoplocephaloides Baer, 1923 s. s. (Cyclophyllidea: Anoplocephalidae) in lemmings (Lemmus, Synaptomys)

Author
item HAUKISALMI, VOITTO - University Of Helsinki
item HARDMAN, LOTTA - Finnish Forest Research Institute
item FEDEROV, VADIM - University Of Alaska
item Hoberg, Eric
item HENTTONEN, HEIKKI - Finnish Forest Research Institute

Submitted to: Zoologica Scripta
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/1/2015
Publication Date: 10/10/2015
Citation: Haukisalmi, V., Hardman, L., Federov, V., Hoberg, E.P., Henttonen, H. 2015. Molecular systematics and Holarctic phylogeography of cestodes of the genus Anoplocephaloides Baer, 1923 s. s. (Cyclophyllidea: Anoplocephalidae) in lemmings (Lemmus, Synaptomys). Zoologica Scripta. 45(1):88-102.

Interpretive Summary: Our understanding of parasite diversity (species and where they occur) emerges from long-term investigations involving many potential host groups, and over the past decade studies of rodent-tapeworm systems have contributed substantial insights toward a general understanding of the biosphere. Across the Northern Hemisphere the role of geographic expansion and a relationship between complex faunas in Eurasia and North America has been demonstrated. Molecular-based studies of tapeworms in the genus Anoplocephaloides and their lemming hosts highlight these patterns. Processes of species origins involved both coevolution (evolutionary descent of hosts and parasites) and events of geographic shifts and host switching under influence of glacial-interglacial cycles and ecological disruption. Understanding these patterns promotes development of more general ideas about pathways for evolution and invasion-processes of pathogens that circulate among rodents and which can jump to humans under appropriate environmental circumstances. This study will be of interest to parasitologists, biogeographers, and disease ecologists in developing a synoptic framework to understand and document changing distributions of disease organisms under a current regime of climate change.

Technical Abstract: The present molecular-systematic and phylogeographic analysis is based on sequences of cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) (mtDNA) and 28S ribosomal DNA, and includes 59 isolates of cestodes of the genus Anoplocephaloides Baer, 1923 s. s. (Cyclophyllidea, Anoplocephalidae) from arvicoline rodents (lemmings and voles) in the Holarctic region. The emphasis is on Anoplocephaloides lemmi (Rausch, 1952) parasitizing Lemmus trimucronatus and Lemmus sibiricus in the northern parts of North America and Arctic coast of Siberia, and Anoplocephaloides kontrimavichusi Rausch, 1976 parasitizing Synaptomys borealis in Alaska and British Columbia. The cox1 data, 28S data and their concatenated data all suggest that A. lemmi and A. kontrimavichusi are both non-monophyletic, each consisting of two separate, well-defined clades, i.e. independent species. As an example, the sister group of the clade 1 of A. lemmi, evidently representing the “type clade” of this species, is the clade 1 of A. kontrimavichusi. For A. kontrimavichusi, it is not known which one is the type clade. There is also fairly strong evidence for the non-monophyly of Anoplocephaloides dentata (Galli-Valerio, 1905) -like species, although an earlier phylogeny suggested that this multispecies assemblage may be monophyletic. The results suggest a deep phylogenetic codivergence of Lemmus spp. and A. lemmi, primarily separating the two largely allopatric host and parasite species at the Kolyma River in east Siberia. There are also two allopatric sublineages within each main clade/species of A. lemmi and Lemmus, but the present distributions of the sublineages within the eastern L. trimucronatus and clade 1 of A. lemmi are not concordant. This discrepancy may be most parsimoniously explained by an extensive westward distributional shift of the easternmost parasite subclade. The results further suggest that the clade 1 of A. kontrimavichusi has diverged through a host shift from the precursor of L. trimucronatus to S. borealis.