Taxonomic and geographic bias in the genetic study of helminth parasites

International Journal for Parasitology
Robert PoulinFátima Jorge

Abstract

The use of genetic information is now fundamental in parasite taxonomy and systematics, for resolving parasite phylogenies, discovering cryptic species, and elucidating patterns of gene flow among parasite populations. The accumulation of available gene sequences per geographical area or per parasite taxonomic group is likely proportional to species richness, but not without some biases. Certain areas and certain taxonomic groups receive more research effort than others, possibly causing a deficit in the relative number of parasite species being characterized genetically in some areas or taxonomic groups. Here, we use data on the number of parasite records per country or helminth family from the London Natural History Museum host-parasite database, and matching data on the number of gene sequences available from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) GenBank database, to determine how available gene sequences scale with species richness across countries or parasitic helminth families. Our quantitative analysis identified countries/regions of the world and helminth families that have received the most effort in genetic research. More importantly, it allowed us to generate lists (based on residuals from the stat...Continue Reading

References

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Dec 28, 2016·Journal of Evolutionary Biology·R Poulin, G Pérez-Ponce de León
Mar 7, 2017·Journal of Helminthology·G Pérez-Ponce de León, R Poulin
Jun 1, 2018·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Fátima Jorge, Robert Poulin
Jul 18, 2018·Parasitology·Robert Poulin, Fátima Jorge
Sep 8, 2018·PloS One·Teresita M Porter, Mehrdad Hajibabaei
Jan 1, 2017·Database : the Journal of Biological Databases and Curation·Tasnia TahsinMatthew Scotch

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Citations

Dec 2, 2019·Parasitology Research·Daniel GrabnerBernd Sures
Oct 14, 2020·Journal of Evolutionary Biology·Eleanor M HayFátima Jorge

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