Cophylogenetic assessment of New World warblers (Parulidae) and their symbiotic feather mites (Proctophyllodidae)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Host–symbiont relationships are ubiquitous in nature, yet evolutionary and ecological processes that shape these intricate associations are often poorly understood. All orders of birds engage in symbioses with feather mites, which are ectosymbiotic arthropods that spend their entire life on hosts. Due to their permanent obligatory association with hosts, limited dispersal and primarily vertical transmission, we hypothesized that the cospeciation between feather mites and hosts within one avian family (Parulidae) would be perfect (strict cospeciation). We assessed cophylogenetic patterns and tested for congruence between species in two confamiliar feather mite genera (Proctophyllodidae: Proctophyllodes , Amerodectes ) found on 13 species of migratory warblers (and one other closely related migratory species) in the eastern United States. Based on COI sequence data, we found three Proctophyllodes lineages and six Amerodectes lineages. Distance‐ and event‐based cophylogenetic analyses suggested different cophylogenetic trajectories of the two mite genera, and although some associations were significant, there was little overall evidence supporting strict cospeciation. Host switching is likely responsible for incongruent phylogenies. In one case, we documented prairie warblers Setophaga discolor harboring two mite species of the same genus. Most interestingly, we found strong evidence that host ecology may influence the likelihood of host switching occurring. For example, we documented relatively distantly related ground‐nesting hosts (ovenbird Seiurus aurocapilla and Kentucky warbler Geothlypis formosa ) sharing a single mite species, while other birds are shrub/canopy or cavity nesters. Overall, our results suggest that cospeciation is not the case for feather mites and parulid hosts at this fine phylogenetic scale, and raise the question if cospeciation applies for other symbiotic systems involving hosts that have complex life histories. We also provide preliminary evidence that incorporating host ecological traits into cophylogenetic analyses may be useful for understanding how symbiotic systems have evolved.
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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 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 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".