Surveys and Literature Review of Parasites among African Mole-Rats: Proposing Hypotheses for the Roles of Geography, Ecology, and Host Phylogenetic Relatedness in Parasite Sharing.

Abstract

Hosts that overlap geographically, are less phylogenetically divergent, and/or share similar ecological conditions (e.g., climate, habitat type) are also likely to share parasites. Here we assessed the ectoparasite communities sustained by 3 solitary species of Bathyergidae (and) as well as the endoparasites exploitingand compared them with those reported in the literature for other sympatric and parapatric African mole-rat species. In addition to 1 nematode (sp.) and 1 symbiotic ciliate (), we collected mites of the generaandas well as unidentified trombiculids from these hosts. Host specificity was high at either the species, genus, or family level forspp. andspp. irrespective of geographic proximity, host phylogeny, or ecological conditions. Host sharing was more limited for helminths but observed among sympatric host species. Our results suggest that ecological similarity and geographic proximity may be more important determinants of host sharing than phylogeny within Bathyergidae.