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Leveraging Micro-CT Scanning to Analyze Parasitic Plant-Host Interactions
Published on: January 12, 2022
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A geography-aware reconciliation method to investigate diversification patterns in host/parasite interactions
Vincent Berry1,2, François Chevenet1,3, Jean-Philippe Doyon1
1Institut de Biologie Computationnelle, LIRMM, Université de Montpellier, CNRS, Montpellier, France.
Molecular Ecology Resources
|April 27, 2018
Summary
This study introduces geography-aware reconciliation to analyze host-symbiont evolution. Incorporating geographic data improves the biological realism of codiversification scenarios, aiding in understanding evolutionary biogeography.
Area of Science:
- Evolutionary biology
- Phylogenetics
- Biogeography
Background:
- Cospeciation studies investigate simultaneous speciation of hosts and symbionts versus diversification via host shifts.
- Reconciliation analyses map symbiont phylogenies onto host phylogenies, but can be difficult to interpret and lack biological realism.
- Geographic history influences cospeciation and host switching, yet existing reconciliation software does not integrate this data.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop and present a novel functionality in Mowgli software that integrates geographic data into reconciliation analyses.
- To generate more biologically realistic codiversification scenarios by incorporating geographical information.
- To improve the understanding of host-symbiont evolutionary and biogeographic histories.
Main Methods:
- Implemented a new geography-aware reconciliation algorithm in Mowgli software.
- Enabled users to input geographic data for extant and ancestral host and symbiont taxa.
- Updated the SylvX reconciliation viewer to visualize geographic inconsistencies.
Main Results:
- Demonstrated that geography-aware reconciliation yields different diversification scenarios compared to methods ignoring geographic data, using the fig/fig wasp association as a case study.
- The updated SylvX viewer highlights geographically inconsistent reconciliations when geographic constraints are not applied.
- Comparison of reconciliations with and without geographic constraints helps resolve ambiguities in partner biogeographic histories.
Conclusions:
- Geography-aware reconciliation represents a significant advancement for studying the evolution of biotic interactions and biogeography.
- Integrating geographic data enhances the biological realism and interpretability of cospeciation and host shift analyses.
- This method is particularly valuable given advances in phylogenetics and the increasing availability of geographic data.
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