Collaborative Research: Adaptation or opportunity? Using mammal sucking lice to determine drivers of host-parasite associations

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Parasitism is one of the most common forms of life on the planet. However, it is largely unknown why organisms parasitize some species but not others. Sucking lice parasitize one or a few mammal host species, but it is unclear if this limited number of hosts is due to the inability of a louse to parasitize other species or simply lack of opportunity to encounter additional hosts. This research project will investigate how the evolutionary history, genes, and physical traits of sucking lice, including human lice, determine what host species they can parasitize. These findings will also identify potential genetic and physical traits important in parasitism to investigate in other parasites. More broadly, this research can be used to help understand the likelihood of a parasite moving to a new host and help to reduce or mitigate the consequences of new parasites. This project will train students and researchers in cutting-edge research methods, generate college-level curricula, and use virtual reality experiences to educate the public about the diversity of lice and their traits. To investigate selection and adaptations in sucking lice, this project will use high-throughput sequencing to build the first phylogenomic tree for mammalian sucking lice (Anoplura). Next, the project will generate a database of louse morphological characters and spatial distributions through novel machine learning algorithms to mine species descriptions. Third, this investigation will assemble louse coding genes and genomes and use nanoCT scanning and geometric morphometrics to characterize phenotypic traits of distantly related louse taxa parasitizing the same host species. These datasets will be integrated to: 1) date louse diversification events and test for host-parasite codiversification, 2) examine the evolution of louse morphological characters and association of louse traits with host characters, 3) assess louse biogeographic histories and distributions relative to hosts, and 4) determine which genomic and morphological traits are under selection to facilitate parasitism. This project will determine if louse diversification and host associations are primarily driven by history and host adaptations, or if louse adaptations could permit parasitism of a diversity of hosts but are restricted to one or a few host species due to limited dispersal and ultimately address the question, “Why and how to be a parasite?”This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.