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Phylogenetic Position of the Adeleorinid Coccidia (Myzozoa, Apicomplexa, Coccidia, Eucoccidiorida, Adeleorina) Inferred Using 18S rDNA Sequences
Author(s) -
Barta John R.,
Ogedengbe Joseph D.,
Martin Donald S.,
Smith Todd G.
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of eukaryotic microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.067
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1550-7408
pISSN - 1066-5234
DOI - 10.1111/j.1550-7408.2011.00607.x
Subject(s) - biology , monophyly , paraphyly , coccidia , systematics , clade , phylogenetic tree , zoology , taxon , phylogenetics , evolutionary biology , ribosomal dna , 18s ribosomal rna , taxonomy (biology) , parasite hosting , ecology , genetics , gene , world wide web , computer science
Investigating the evolutionary relationships of the major groups of A picomplexa remains an important area of study. Morphological features and host‐parasite relationships continue to be important in the systematics of the adeleorinid coccidia (suborder A deleorina), but the systematics of these parasites have not been well‐supported or have been constrained by data that were lacking or difficult to interpret. Previous phylogenetic studies of the A deleorina have been based on morphological and developmental characters of several well‐described species or based on nuclear 18S ribosomal DNA ( rDNA ) sequences from taxa of limited taxonomic diversity. Twelve new 18S rDNA sequences from adeleorinid coccidia were combined with published sequences to study the molecular phylogeny of taxa within the A deleorina and to investigate the evolutionary relationships of adeleorinid parasites within the A picomplexa. Three phylogenetic methods supported strongly that the suborder A deleorina formed a monophyletic clade within the A picomplexa. Most widely recognized families within the A deleorina were hypothesized to be monophyletic in all analyses, although the single H emolivia species included in the analyses was the sister taxon to a H epatozoon sp. within a larger clade that contained all other H epatozoon spp. making the family H epatozoidae paraphyletic. There was an apparent relationship between the various clades generated by the analyses and the definitive (invertebrate) host parasitized and, to lesser extent, the type of intermediate (vertebrate) host exploited by the adeleorinid parasites. We conclude that additional taxon sampling and use of other genetic markers apart from 18S rDNA will be required to better resolve relationships among these parasites.