The first steps toward a global pandemic: Reconstructing the demographic history of parasite host switches in its native range.

ABSTRACT: Host switching allows parasites to expand their niches. However, successful switching may require suites of adaptations and also may decrease performance on the old host. As a result, reductions in gene flow accompany many host switches, driving speciation. Because host switches tend to be rapid, it is difficult to study them in real-time, and their demographic parameters remain poorly understood. As a result, fundamental factors that control subsequent parasite evolution, such as the size of the switching population or the extent of immigration from the original host, remain largely unknown. To shed light on the host switching process, we explored how host switches occur in independent host shifts by two ectoparasitic honey bee mites (Varroa destructor and V. jacobsoni). Both switched to

SUBMITTER: Techer MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11105409 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature