Tick-borne disease systems: mapping geographic and phylogenetic space

Advances in Parasitology
Sarah E Randolph, David J Rogers

Abstract

Evidence is presented that the evolution of the tick-borne flaviviruses is driven by biotic factors, principally the exploitation of new hosts as transmission routes. Because vector-borne diseases are limited by climatic conditions, however, abiotic factors have the potential to direct and constrain the evolutionary pathways. This idea is explored by testing the hypothesis that closely related viruses occupy more similar eco-climatic spaces than do more distantly related viruses. A statistical comparison of the conventional phylogenetic tree derived from molecular distances and a novel phenetic tree derived from distances between the climatic spaces within which each virus circulates, indicates that these trees match each other more closely than would be expected at random. This suggests that these viruses are indeed limited in the degree to which they can evolve into new environmental conditions.

Citations

Jul 11, 2009·International Journal of Health Geographics·Simon BrookerRobert W Snow
Mar 12, 2009·Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Infectious Diseases·L Berrang-FordN H Ogden
Feb 3, 2016·Parasitology·Stephanie M Fletcher-Lartey, Graziella Caprarelli
Jan 24, 2019·Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease·John B MaloneJeffrey C Luvall

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