Assessing micro-macroparasite selective pressures and anthropogenic disturbance as drivers of immune gene diversity in a Neotropical wild cat
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Fecha
2023-11-01
Profesor/a Guía
Facultad/escuela
Idioma
en
Título de la revista
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Título del volumen
Editor
Elsevier B.V.
Nombre de Curso
Licencia CC
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0 Internacional
Licencia CC
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.es
Resumen
Anthropogenic environmental change is reducing available habitat for wild species, providing novel selection pressures such as infectious diseases and causing species to interact in new ways. The potential for emerging infectious diseases and zoonoses at the interface between humans, domestic animals, and wild species is a key global concern. In vertebrates, diversity at the major histocompatibility complex MHC is critical to disease resilience, and its study in wild populations provides insights into eco-evolutionary dynamics that human activities alter. In natural populations, variation at MHC loci is partly maintained by balancing selection, driven by pathogenic selective pressures. We hypothesize that MHC genetic diversity differs between guigna populations inhabiting human-dominated landscapes (higher pathogen pressures) versus more natural habitats (lower pathogen pressures). We predict that MHC diversity in guignas would be highest in human-dominated landscapes compared with continuous forest habitats. We also expected to find higher MHC diversity in guignas infected with micro and macro parasites (higher parasite load) versus non infected guignas. We characterized for the first time the genetic diversity at three MHC class I and II exons in 128 wild guignas (Leopardus guigna) across their distribution range in Chile (32–46° S) and Argentina, representing landscapes with varying levels of human disturbance. We integrated MHC sequence diversity with multiple measures of anthropogenic disturbance and both micro and macro parasite infection data. We also assessed signatures of positive selection acting on MHC genes. We found significantly higher MHC class I diversity in guignas inhabiting landscapes where houses were present, and with lower percentage of vegetation cover, and also in animals with more severe cardiorespiratory helminth infection (richness and intensity) and micro-macroparasite co-infection. This comprehensive, landscape-level assessment further enhances our knowledge on the evolutionary dynamics and adaptive potential of vertebrates in the face of emerging infectious disease threats and increasing anthropogenic impacts.
Notas
Indexación Scopus
Palabras clave
Chile, Genetic diversity, Human-dominated landscapes, Leopardus guigna, Major histocompatibility complex (MHC)
Citación
Science of the Total Environment Volume 897 1 November 2023 Article number 166289
DOI
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166289