ABSTRACT
Female, physogastric female and male of Picobia polonica sp. n. collected from the domestic hen Gallus gallus domesticus (L.) in Poland are described and the phenomenon of physogastry in this and related species is briefly discussed. Picobia polonica is similar to Picobia khulkhshani (Kivganov et Sharafat, 1995). These two species can be distinguished by the following characters: P. polonica: chelicerae dentate, each with three minute teeth; setae g1 and pg2 subequal in length; ratio pg1 : pg2, 3: 1. P. khulkhshani: chelicerae edentate; setae g1 twice shorter than pg2; ratio pg1 : pg2, 1.6: 1.
Subject(s)
Chickens/parasitology , Mites/anatomy & histology , Animals , Feathers/parasitology , Female , Male , Microscopy, Interference , PolandABSTRACT
Phylogenetic relationships among feather mites of the subfamily Avenzoariinae (Acari: Analgoidea: Avenzoariidae) were reconstructed by parsimony analysis of a combined data matrix. We analyzed 41 morphological characters and 246 molecular characters from a fragment of the 16S rDNA. Morphological trees were well supported at deep branches (genera and above), but showed much less support and resolution within genera. Molecular analyses produced trees with better resolution and support on terminal branches and worse support on basal branches. I(MF) index for the combined matrix pointed to the significant congruence of both data subsets with the whole of the data. The topology of the combined tree was close to the morphological tree in the deep branches and had well-resolved terminal branches as in the molecular tree. This suggests a considerable level of complimentarity between the two data sets. An analysis of association patterns of the mites and their hosts was conducted based on the results of the combined analyses for the Avenzoariinae and a phylogeny of their charadriiform hosts (compiled from various bird phylogeny hypotheses). The trees could be reconciled by the invoking of 12-13 cospeciation events, 6-7 duplications, 2 host shifts, and 26-29 sorting events. This suggests a high degree of cospeciation.
Subject(s)
Mites/genetics , Phylogeny , Animals , Birds/genetics , Birds/parasitology , DNA, Mitochondrial/chemistry , DNA, Mitochondrial/genetics , Evolution, Molecular , Host-Parasite Interactions , Mites/anatomy & histology , Mites/classification , Molecular Sequence Data , RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics , Species SpecificityABSTRACT
The random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) technique was used to study the genomic relationships of three liverworts from the genus Pellia: P.epiphylla, P. borealis and P. neesiana. Altogether 150 characters (150 DNA fragments obtained using PCR) were scored. These characters were used to create a matrix of pairwise distances between all the pairs of taxa. Both distance (UPGMA, Fitch-Margoliash and Neighbor-Joining) and binary character-state (Wagner and Camin-Sokal parsimony and compatibility) methods were applied for trees' construction. Our results strongly support distinction of the recently discovered sibling species of P.epiphylla - species N and P.epiphylla - species S, which have an allopatric distribution in Poland (N - North, S - South Poland). Moreover, our data also supports the hypothesis of a hybrid origin (alloploid) of the polyploid P. borealis from P. epiphylla-NxP.epiphylla-S. P.neesiana was excluded as a donor of either of the genomes of P. borealis.