Ticks without borders: Microbial communities of immature Neotropical tick species parasitizing migratory landbirds along northern Gulf of Mexico
The long-distance, seasonal migrations of birds make them an effective ecological bridge for the movement of ticks. The introduction of exotic tick species to new geographical regions can lead to the emergence of novel tick-borne pathogens or the re-emergence of previously eradicated ones. This stud...
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| Published in | bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology |
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| Main Authors | , , , , , , , , , , |
| Format | Journal Article |
| Language | English |
| Published |
United States
24.10.2023
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| Subjects | |
| Online Access | Get more information |
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| Summary: | The long-distance, seasonal migrations of birds make them an effective ecological bridge for the movement of ticks. The introduction of exotic tick species to new geographical regions can lead to the emergence of novel tick-borne pathogens or the re-emergence of previously eradicated ones. This study assessed the prevalence of exotic tick species parasitizing resident, short-distance, and long-distance songbirds during spring and autumn at stopover sites in the northern Gulf of Mexico using the mitochondrial 12S rDNA gene. Birds were captured for tick collection from six different sites from late August to early November in both 2018 and 2019. The highest number of ticks were collected in the 2019 season. Most ticks were collected off the Yellow-breasted Chat (
) and Common Yellowthroat (
), and 54% of the total ticks collected were from Grand Chenier, LA. A high throughput 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing approach was followed to characterize the microbial communities and identify pathogenic microbes in all tick samples. Tick microbial communities, diversity, and community structure were determined using quantitative insight into microbial ecology (QIIME). The sparse correlations for compositional data (SparCC) approach was then used to construct microbial network maps and infer microbial correlations. A total of 421 individual ticks in the genera
and
were recorded from 28 songbird species, of which
and
was the most abundant tick genus and species, respectively. Microbial profiles showed that Proteobacteria was the most abundant phylum. The most abundant bacteria include the pathogenic
and endosymbiont
and
. BLAST analysis and phylogenetic reconstruction of the
sequences revealed the highest similarities to pathogenic spotted and non-spotted fever groups, including R.
and
. Permutation multivariate analysis of variance revealed that the relative abundance of
and
drives microbial patterns across the tick genera. We also observed a higher percentage of positive correlations in microbe-microbe interactions among members of the microbial communities. Network analysis suggested a negative correlation between a)
and
and, b)
and
. Lastly, mapping the distributions of bird species parasitized during spring migrations highlighted geographic hotspots where migratory songbirds could disperse ticks and their pathogens at stopover sites or upon arrival to their breeding grounds, the latter showing means dispersal distances from 421-5003 kilometers. These findings strongly highlight the potential role of migratory birds in the epidemiology of tick-borne pathogens. |
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