RT Journal Article
T1 Lizard host abundances and climatic factors explain phylogenetic diversity and prevalence of blood parasites on an oceanic island
A1 Megia Palma, Rodrigo Manuel
A1 Palomar García, Gemma
A1 Martínez, Javier
A1 Antunes, Bernardo
A1 Dudek, Katarzyna
A1 Zagar, Anamarija
A1 Serén, Nina
A1 Carretero, Miguel Ángel
A1 Babik, Wieslaw
A1 Merino, Santiago
AB Host abundance might favour the maintenance of a high phylogenetic diversity of some parasites via rapid transmission rates. Blood parasites of insular lizards represent a good model to test this hypothesis because these parasites can be particularly prevalent in islands and host lizards highly abundant. We applied deep amplicon sequencing and analysed environmental predictors of blood parasite prevalence and phylogenetic diversity in the endemic lizard Gallotia galloti across 24 localities on Tenerife, an island in the Canary archipelago that has experienced increasing warming and drought in recent years. Parasite prevalence assessed by microscopy was over 94%, and a higher proportion of infected lizards was found in warmer and drier locations. A total of 33 different 18s rRNA parasite haplotypes were identified, and the phylogenetic analyses indicated that they belong to two genera of Adeleorina (Apicomplexa: Coccidia), with Karyolysus as the dominant genus. The most important predictor of between-locality variation in parasite phylogenetic diversity was the abundance of lizard hosts. We conclude that a combination of climatic and host demographic factors associated with an insular syndrome may be favouring a rapid transmission of blood parasites among lizards on Tenerife, which may favour the maintenance of a high phylogenetic diversity of parasites.
PB Wiley
SN 0962-1083
YR 2024
FD 2024
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/112575
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/112575
LA eng
NO Megía‐Palma R, Palomar G, Martínez J, Antunes B, Dudek K, Žagar A, Serén N, Carretero MA, Babik W, Merino S. Lizard host abundances and climatic factors explain phylogenetic diversity and prevalence of blood parasites on an oceanic island. Molecular Ecology 2024;33:e17276. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.17276.
NO Funding:MINECO/ERDF (CGL2015-67789-C2-1-P and PGC2018-097426-B-C21 to SM and JM), FCT/ERDF (28014 02/SAICT/2017 to MAC), and ARRS (P1-0255 and J1-2466 to AŽ) provided financial support. RM-P enjoys a postdoctoral contract (CEECIND/04084/2017) provided by ICETA—Instituto de Ciências, Tecnologias e Agroambiente da Universidade do Porto and Fundação da Ciência e Tecnologia
NO European Commission
NO Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (España)
NO Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal)
NO Instituto de Ciências, Tecnologias e Agroambiente da Universidade do Porto
NO Slovenian Research Agency
DS Docta Complutense
RD 31 dic 2025