The Evolution of Microhabitat Specialization in Avian Ischnocera: Displacement or Assortment?

摘要密切相关的同域物种在利用资源或逃避天敌的方式上往往有所不同。这些重复的差异可以归因于两个过程：重复的角色置换或血统分类。寄生在鸟类上的羽毛虱(昆虫纲：Ischnocera)提供了在一个相对多样化的系统中测试这两种替代品的机会，该系统涉及几个与寄生虫逃避宿主整理有关的宿主微生境。这项研究将基于分子和形态数据的综合，包括一个线粒体和三个核基因的DNA序列和近6000个碱基对，构建鸟类羽虱的系统发育。系统发育将允许对微生境专门化进行关键评估，这是在宿主-寄生虫系统中进行的第一次这样严格的测试。种群遗传学家、系统学家和生态学家对这种宿主-寄生虫适应系统感兴趣，并对了解医学和兽医昆虫学家感兴趣的寄生关系的起源具有重要意义。形态和分子数据的整合将支持羽虱系统发育的第一个严格的现代概念，并形成极大改进和预测性分类的基础。

Abstract Closely related sympatric species often differ in the way they use resources or escape their natural enemies. These repeated differences can be attributed to two processes: repeated character displacement or lineage assortment. Feather lice (Insecta: Ischnocera), parasitic on birds, provide an opportunity to test for these two alternatives in a relatively diverse system that involves several host microhabitats related to parasite escape from host preening. This research will construct a phylogeny of avian feather lice based on an integration of molecular and morphological data, including DNA sequences for one mitochondrial and three nuclear genes and nearly 6000 base pairs. The phylogeny will permit a critical assessment of microhabitat specialization, the first such rigorous test in a host-parasite system. This host-parasite system of adaptations is of interest to population geneticists, systematists, and ecologists and has implications for understanding the origin of parasitic relationships of interest to medical and veterinary entomologists. Integration of morphological and molecular data will support the first rigorous, modern concepts of feather lice phylogeny and form the basis for greatly improved and predictive classifications.