Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 107, Issue 39, Pages 17035-17040Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1006225107
Keywords
comparative phylogeography; host-parasite interactions; eastern North America; Orobanchaceae; Fagus
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [0608310]
- Mellon Foundation
- Sigma Xi
- Duke University Graduate School
- Duke University Department of Biology
- Association for Women in Science
- Sigma Delta Epsilon/Graduate Women in Science
- American Society of Plant Taxonomists
- Direct For Biological Sciences
- Division Of Environmental Biology [0608310] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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To survive changes in climate, successful species shift their geographic ranges to remain in suitable habitats. For parasites and other highly specialized species, distributional changes not only are dictated by climate but can also be engineered by their hosts. The extent of host control on parasite range expansion is revealed through comparisons of host and parasite migration and demographic histories. However, understanding the codistributional history of entire forest communities is complicated by challenges in synthesizing datasets from multiple interacting species of differing datatypes. Here we integrate genetic and fossil pollen datasets from a host-parasite pair; specifically, the population structure of the parasitic plant (Epifagus virginiana) was compared with both its host (Fagus grandifolia) genetic patterns and abundance data from the paleopollen record of the last 21,000 y. Through tests of phylogeographic structure and spatial linear regression models we find, surprisingly, host range changes had little effect on the parasite's range expansion and instead host density is the main driver of parasite spread. Unlike other symbionts that have been used as proxies to track their host's movements, this parasite's migration routes are incongruent with the host and instead reflect the greater importance of host density in this community's assembly. Furthermore, these results confirm predictions of disease ecological models regarding the role of host density in the spread of pathogens. Due to host density constraints, highly specialized species may have low migration capacities and long lag times before colonization of new areas.
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