Search for: All records

Sucking lice are obligate parasites of eutherian mammals and are generally considered to be host-specific parasites. Molecular investigations have found that some current louse taxonomy is incorrect and does not reflect the relationships among families and species. Western chipmunks (23 species of Tamias) and the eastern chipmunk (Tamias striatus) are infested by 2 different species of Hoplopleura sucking lice, Hoplopleura arboricola and Hoplopleura erratica. Hoplopleura arboricola has been found on 19 of 23 western chipmunk species, and H. erratica has only been recorded as a parasite of T. striatus. We investigated the relationships between these chipmunk lice and louse systematic status by supplementing published sequence data with additional sequences and morphological examinations. We estimated phylogenetic relationships using 1,107 coding loci in a maximum-likelihood framework and a species tree approach. In addition to the phylogeny, we calculated raw pairwise distances of the cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 gene (COI) between clades. Both phylogenetic approaches recovered 2 well-supported clades of H. arboricola, 1 of which included H. erratica, suggesting that the 2 louse species are not distinct. Further, examination of louse specimens found no morphological traits that distinguish lice from any of the lineages, including differentiating H. erratica from H. arboricola. The average pairwise distance of COI sequences between the 2 major H. arboricola clades exceeded that of the distances between H. erratica and either of the H. arboricola clades. Based on the genetic similarities and phylogenetic relationships of the lice, it appears that an ancestral louse was associated with western chipmunks and then transferred to the eastern chipmunk. Using the phylogenetic and morphological evidence presented here, Hoplopleura arboricolaKellogg and Ferris, 1915 is relegated to a junior subjective synonym of Hoplopleura erratica (Osborn, 1896). A holotype from the type series is designated for H. erratica. These results suggest a history of chipmunk host species interactions that enabled ectoparasites to disperse between chipmunk species and illustrate the importance of phylogenomic analyses to study species interactions and the history of interspecific associations. 

Abstract Natural history collections are repositories of biodiversity specimens that provide critical infrastructure for studies of mammals. Over the past 3 decades, digitization of collections has opened up the temporal and spatial properties of specimens, stimulating new data sharing, use, and training across the biodiversity sciences. These digital records are the cornerstones of an “extended specimen network,” in which the diverse data derived from specimens become digital, linked, and openly accessible for science and policy. However, still missing from most digital occurrences of mammals are their morphological, reproductive, and life-history traits. Unlocking this information will advance mammalogy, establish richer faunal baselines in an era of rapid environmental change, and contextualize other types of specimen-derived information toward new knowledge and discovery. Here, we present the Ranges Digitization Network (Ranges), a community effort to digitize specimen-level traits from all terrestrial mammals of western North America, append them to digital records, publish them openly in community repositories, and make them interoperable with complimentary data streams. Ranges is a consortium of 23 institutions with an initial focus on non-marine mammal species (both native and introduced) occurring in western Canada, the western United States, and Mexico. The project will establish trait data standards and informatics workflows that can be extended to other regions, taxa, and traits. Reconnecting mammalogists, museum professionals, and researchers for a new era of collections digitization will catalyze advances in mammalogy and create a community-curated trait resource for training and engagement with global conservation initiatives.