Diversity and structure of feather mite communities on seabirds from the north–east Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea

• Published in: Scientific Reports
• Main Authors: Stefan, Laura, M, Isbert, Wolf, Gómez-Díaz, Elena, Mironov, Sergey, V, Doña, Jorge, Mccoy, Karen, González‐solís, Jacob
• Other Authors: Institut de Recerca de la Biodiversitat - Biodiversity Research Institute Barcelona, Spain (IRBio UB), Universitat de Barcelona (UB), National Institute of Research and Development for Biological Sciences Bucarest (INCDSB), Maladies infectieuses et vecteurs : écologie, génétique, évolution et contrôle (MIVEGEC), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Université de Montpellier (UM), Universitat de València (UV), Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI), Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas = Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences Moscow (RAS), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Urbana (UIUC), University of Illinois System
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: MESH: Animals; MESH: Mites; MESH: Mediterranean Sea; MESH: Birds; MESH: Host Specificity; MESH: Atlantic Ocean; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDV.BA]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Animal biology; [SDV.EE.IEO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology; environment/Symbiosis; North East Atlantic; Mite
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04123400; https://hal.science/hal-04123400/document; https://hal.science/hal-04123400/file/Stefan.2023.ScientRep.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-30858-8

International audience The richness and structure of symbiont assemblages are shaped by many factors acting at different spatial and temporal scales. Among them, host phylogeny and geographic distance play essential roles. To explore drivers of richness and structure of symbiont assemblages, feather mites and seabirds are an attractive model due to their peculiar traits. Feather mites are permanent ectosymbionts and considered highly host-specific with limited dispersal abilities. Seabirds harbour species-rich feather mite communities and their colonial breeding provides opportunities for symbionts to exploit several host species. To unravel the richness and test the influence of host phylogeny and geographic distance on mite communities, we collected feather mites from 11 seabird species breeding across the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Using morphological criteria, we identified 33 mite species, of which 17 were new or recently described species. Based on community similarity analyses, mite communities were clearly structured by host genera, while the effect of geography within host genera or species was weak and sometimes negligible. We found a weak but significant effect of geographic distance on similarity patterns in mite communities for Cory’s shearwaters Calonectris borealis. Feather mite specificity mainly occurred at the host-genus rather than at host-species level, suggesting that previously inferred host species-specificity may have resulted from poorly sampling closely related host species. Overall, our results show that host phylogeny plays a greater role than geography in determining the composition and structure of mite assemblages and pinpoints the importance of sampling mites from closely-related host species before describing mite specificity patterns