Despite their extensive diversity and ecological importance, the history of diversification for most groups of parasitic organisms remains relatively understudied. Elucidating broad macroevolutionary patterns of parasites is challenging, often limited by the availability of samples, genetic resources, and knowledge about ecological relationships with their hosts. In this study, we explore the macroevolutionary history of parasites by focusing on parasitic body lice from doves. Building on extensive knowledge of ecological relationships and previous phylogenomic studies of their avian hosts, we tested specific questions about the evolutionary origins of the body lice of doves, leveraging whole genome data sets for phylogenomics. Specifically, we sequenced whole genomes from 68 samples of dove body lice, including representatives of all body louse genera from 51 host taxa. From these data, we assembled >2,300 nuclear genes to estimate dated phylogenetic relationships among body lice and several outgroup taxa. The resulting phylogeny of body lice was well supported, although some branches had conflicting signal across the genome. We then reconstructed ancestral biogeographic ranges of body lice and compared the body louse phylogeny to phylogeny of doves, and also to a previously published phylogeny of the wing lice of doves. Divergence estimates placed the origin of body lice in the late Oligocene. Body lice likely originated in Australasia and dispersed with their hosts during the early Miocene, with subsequent codivergence and host switching throughout the world. Notably, this evolutionary history is very similar to that of dove wing lice, despite the stronger dispersal capabilities of wing lice compared to body lice. Our results highlight the central role of the biogeographic history of host organisms in driving the evolutionary history of their parasites across time and geographic space.

中文翻译：

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鸽子和鸽子的生物地理历史推动了它们寄生体虱的起源和多样化


尽管它们具有广泛的多样性和生态重要性，但大多数寄生生物群体的多样化历史仍然相对较少被研究。阐明寄生虫的广泛宏观进化模式具有挑战性，通常受到样本、遗传资源以及与宿主生态关系的了解的限制。在这项研究中，我们通过关注鸽子的寄生体虱来探索寄生虫的宏观进化史。基于对生态关系的广泛了解和之前对其鸟类宿主的系统发育学研究，我们利用全基因组数据集进行系统发育学测试，测试了有关鸽子体虱进化起源的具体问题。具体来说，我们对 68 个鸽子体虱样本的全基因组进行了测序，其中包括来自 51 个宿主分类单元的所有体虱属的代表。根据这些数据，我们组装了 >2,300 个核基因，以估计体虱和几个外类群之间的过时系统发育关系。由此产生的体虱系统发育得到了很好的支持，尽管一些分支在整个基因组中存在相互矛盾的信号。然后，我们重建了体虱的祖先生物地理范围，并将体虱的系统发育与鸽子的系统发育以及之前发表的鸽子翼虱的系统发育进行了比较。不同的估计将体虱的起源定为渐新世晚期。体虱可能起源于澳大利亚，并在中新世早期随宿主传播，随后在世界各地发生共分化和宿主转换。值得注意的是，尽管翼虱的传播能力比体虱更强，但这种进化历史与鸽翅虱的进化历史非常相似。 我们的结果强调了宿主生物体的生物地理历史在驱动其寄生虫跨越时间和地理空间的进化历史方面的核心作用。