Avian Louse Phylogeny
Avian Louse Phylogeny (Phthiraptera: Ischnocera): A cladistic study based on morphology
VINCENT S. SMITH
Division of Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland, United Kingdom.Corresponding Author: Vince Smith
e-mail: vincent.s.smith@udcf.gla.ac.uk
Abstract
The louse suborder Ischnocera (Phthiraptera) contains 3,060 currently described species from over 150 genera. These lice are permanent obligatory ectoparasites of a diverse selection of birds and mammals with a worldwide distribution. They have historically played a major role in the development of our ideas on coevolution, and species hosted by mammals have been used extensively as model organism for the study of cospeciation. In contrast, avian taxa comprising 90% of ischnoceran species have been largely neglected due to a lack of data on their wider systematics. A comparative study of based on adult and instar morphology of avian lice yielded 138 characters from 56 species (51 genera), all of which are figured or discussed for the first time. A further five outgroup taxa were examined from the mammalian ischnoceran family Trichodectidae. Phylogenetic analyses of these data produced three most parsimonious cladograms, the strict consensus of which is highly resolved and broadly consistent with previous classifications. Morphological character variation is extensive, and nymphal character traits are essential to identify instances of convergent evolution in adult morphology. The role of ontogeny in the development of the major character complexes of the head and abdomen is discussed and its implications for further work on the phylogeny of avian Ischnocera is considered. Comparison with host taxonomy reveals a pattern that is broadly consistent with a hypothesis of cospeciation. However, host - parasite associations are complex and difficult to interpret due to the low sample size. The role of niche specialisation to explain the presence of multiple unrelated lineages on the same host taxon is considered.Preprint
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(PDF 1.72MB) Smith, V. S. (2001). Avian Louse Phylogeny (Phthiraptera: Ischnocera): A cladistic study based on morphology. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 132: 81-144.
NEXUS File and Images
The full data matrix includes detailed notes and observations on the character states and taxon attributes, many of which are supplementary to those given in the paper. Because the size of these file is very large (particularly with character state and taxon images) four options in NEXUS format are available:
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Supplementary Data
A summary of the morphometric data used to help establish the instar status of the taxa examined can be downloaded in PDF format here.