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Medical Vet Entomology - 2023 - Kelly - Mitochondrial genome sequence comparisons indicate that the elephant louse400.90 kB
Published VersionCC BY-NC V4.0, Open Access
Journal article
Mitochondrial genome sequence comparisons indicate that the elephant louse Haematomyzus elephantis (Piaget, 1869) contains cryptic species
Medical and Veterinary Entomology, Vol.38(1), pp.112-117
2024
Appears in UniSC Supported Open Access Outputs
Abstract
The parvorder Rhynchopthirina contains three currently recognised species of lice that parasitize elephants (both African savanna elephant Loxodonta africana and Asian elephant Elephas maximus), desert warthogs (Phacochoerus aethiopicus) and Red River hogs (Potamochoerus porcus), respectively. The Asian elephant lice and the African savanna elephant lice are currently treated as the same species, Haematomyzus elephantis (Piaget, 1869), based on morphology despite the fact that their hosts diverged 8.4 million years ago. In the current study, we sequenced 23 mitochondrial (mt) genes of African savanna elephant lice collected in South Africa and analysed the sequence divergence between African savanna elephant lice and previously sequenced Asian elephant lice. Sequence comparisons revealed >23% divergence for the 23 mt genes as a whole and ~17% divergence for cox1 gene between African savanna and Asian elephant lice, which were far higher than the divergence expected within a species. Furthermore, the mt gene sequence divergences between these lice are 3.76–4.6 times higher than that between their hosts, the African savanna and Asian elephants, which are expected for the co-divergence and co-evolution between lice and their elephant hosts. We conclude that (1) H. elephantis (Piaget, 1869) contains cryptic species and (2) African savanna and Asian elephant lice are different species genetically that may have co-diverged and co-evolved with their hosts.
Details
- Title
- Mitochondrial genome sequence comparisons indicate that the elephant louse Haematomyzus elephantis (Piaget, 1869) contains cryptic species
- Authors
- Sarah Kelly (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Centre for BioinnovationYalun Dong (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Centre for BioinnovationWei Wang (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Centre for BioinnovationSonja Matthee (Author) - Stellenbosch UniversityJeanette M Wentzel (Author) - University of PretoriaLance A Durden (Author) - Georgia Southern UniversityRenfu Shao (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Centre for Bioinnovation
- Publication details
- Medical and Veterinary Entomology, Vol.38(1), pp.112-117
- Publisher
- Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
- Date published
- 2024
- DOI
- 10.1111/mve.12699
- ISSN
- 1365-2915; 0269-283X
- Copyright note
- © 2023 The Authors. Medical and Veterinary Entomology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Entomological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.
- Organisation Unit
- GeneCology Research Centre - Legacy; School of Science, Technology and Engineering; Centre for Bioinnovation
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99971190702621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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- Domestic collaboration
- International collaboration
- Web Of Science research areas
- Entomology
- Veterinary Sciences
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Source: InCites