Host specificity, infrequent major host switching and the diversification of highly host‐specific symbionts: The case of vane‐dwelling feather mites
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Aim Highly host‐specific symbionts are very rarely found except with their typical host species. Although switches to new hosts are rare and difficult to detect, a switch to a host phylogenetically distant from the original one (a ‘major host switch’) could allow diversification of the symbionts onto the new host lineage. The consequences of such major host switches on the diversification of highly host‐specific symbionts of animals have rarely been explored. Here, we examine the host specificity of vane‐dwelling feather mites, a group that shows strong specificity, together with their host‐switching dynamics and the consequences of major host switches for their diversification. Location Global. Time period From 1882 to 2015. Major taxa studied Feather mites and birds. Methods Using the largest published dataset of feather mite–bird associations, we analysed raw, phylogenetic and geographical host specificity of feather mites. We studied host‐switching dynamics by describing the sharing by feather mites of bird species with different phylogenetic distances. For three of the most species‐rich feather mite families, we quantified the consequences of major host switches for feather mite diversification. Results Most feather mite species (84%) inhabit one to three very closely related host species. Assemblages of feather mites on birds do not show a geographical signature, but rather show strong host‐driven structuring. The probability that a mite species occurs on two host species decays sharply with host phylogenetic distance, with only one instance of a feather mite species occupying distantly related hosts from different orders. However, results suggest that despite the strong host specificity, a few major host switches triggered the origin of 21% of the species and 38% of the genera of the mite families studied. Main conclusions We show that feather mites are highly host‐specific symbionts, whose assemblages do not show geographical structure, even at a continental scale. We conclude that major host switches are very rare events with strong macroevolutionary consequences for feather mite diversity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".