@article{9b3567579d384bc8a990ba45747921ee,
title = "Host dispersal shapes the population structure of a tick-borne bacterial pathogen",
abstract = "Birds are hosts for several zoonotic pathogens. Because of their high mobility, especially of longdistance migrants, birds can disperse these pathogens, affecting their distribution and phylogeography. We focused on Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, which includes the causative agents of Lyme borreliosis, as an example for tick-borne pathogens, to address the role of birds as propagation hosts of zoonotic agents at a large geographical scale. We collected ticks from passerine birds in 11 European countries. B. burgdorferi s.l. prevalence in Ixodes spp. was 37% and increased with latitude. The fieldfare Turdus pilaris and the blackbird T. merula carried ticks with the highest Borrelia prevalence (92 and 58%, respectively), whereas robin Erithacus rubecula ticks were the least infected (3.8%). Borrelia garinii was the most prevalent genospecies (61%), followed by B. valaisiana (24%), B. afzelii (9%), B. turdi (5%) and B. lusitaniae (0.5%). A novel Borrelia genospecies {"}Candidatus Borrelia aligera{"} was also detected. Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) analysis of B. garinii isolates together with the global collection of B. garinii genotypes obtained from the Borrelia MLST public database revealed that: (a) there was little overlap among genotypes from different continents, (b) there was no geographical structuring within Europe, and (c) there was no evident association pattern detectable among B. garinii genotypes from ticks feeding on birds, questing ticks or human isolates. These findings strengthen the hypothesis that the population structure and evolutionary biology of tick-borne pathogens are shaped by their host associations and the movement patterns of these hosts.",
keywords = "birds, Borrelia garinii, host-parasite interactions, Lyme borreliosis, migration, ticks, BURGDORFERI SENSU-LATO, IXODES-RICINUS TICKS, BLACKBIRDS TURDUS-MERULA, BORRELIA-BURGDORFERI, LYME-DISEASE, MIGRATORY BIRDS, WILD BIRDS, TRANSMISSION, ACARI, PREVALENCE",
author = "Norte, {Ana Claudia} and Gabriele Margos and Becker, {Noemie S.} and Ramos, {Jaime Albino} and Nuncio, {Maria Sofia} and Volker Fingerle and Araujo, {Pedro Miguel} and Peter Adamik and Haralambos Alivizatos and Emilio Barba and Rafael Barrientos and Laure Cauchard and Tibor Csorgo and Anastasia Diakou and Dingemanse, {Niels J.} and Blandine Doligez and Anna Dubiec and Tapio Eeva and Barbara Flaisz and Tomas Grim and Michaela Hau and Dieter Heylen and Sandor Hornok and Savas Kazantzidis and David Kovats and Frantisek Krause and Ivan Literak and Raivo Mand and Lucia Mentesana and Jennifer Morinay and Marko Mutanen and Neto, {Julio Manuel} and Marketa Novakova and Sanz, {Juan Jose} and {da Silva}, {Luis Pascoal} and Hein Sprong and Ina-Sabrina Tirri and Janos Torok and Tomi Trilar and Zdenek Tyller and Visser, {Marcel E.} and {de Carvalho}, {Isabel Lopes}",
note = "Funding Information: We would like to thank Cecilia Hizo‐Teufel and Christine Hartberger for help with laboratory analyses, Marko M{\"a}gi, Vallo Tilgar, Oscar Fr{\'i}as, Alejandra Toledo V{\'a}squez, Alexia Mouchet, Josef Heryan, Cinthya Lange, Piet de Goede, Henri Bouwmeester, Esa Lehikoinen, Franck Th{\'e}ron, Petra Bandelj, Tea Knapi{\v c}, Irena Kodele Kra{\v s}na, Pavle {\v S}tirn, Katarina Prosenc Trilar, Modest Vengu{\v s}t, Hanna Holmstr{\"o}m, Jorma Nurmi, Miia Rainio, Pablo S{\'a}nchez‐Virosta, Silvia Esp{\'i}n and Lucy Winder who helped with tick collection, V{\'i}tor Hugo Paiva for help with statistical analyses, the Falsterbo Ringing Station and Instituto da Conserva{\c c}{\~a}o da Natureza e Florestas IP and the Slovenian Bird Ringing Center at Slovenian Museum of Natural History for providing conditions for fieldwork and bird ringing. We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on this paper. This study received financial support from Funda{\c c}{\~a}o para a Ci{\^e}ncia e a Tecnologia by the strategic program of MARE (MARE ‐ UID/MAR/04292/2013) and the fellowship to Ana Cl{\'a}udia Norte (SFRH/BPD/108197/2015), and the Portuguese National Institute of Health. Raivo M{\"a}nd, Tomi Trilar, Tapio Eeva, Tomas Grim and Dieter Heylen were supported by the Estonian Research Council (research grant # IUT34‐8), the Slovenian Research Agency ‐programme “Communities, relations and communications in the ecosystems” (No. P1‐0255), the Academy of Finland (project 265859), the Internal Grant Agency of Palacky University (PrF_2014_018, PrF_2015_018, PrF_2013_018) and the Marie Sklodowska‐Curie Actions (EU‐Horizon 2020, Individual Global Fellowship, project no 799609), respectively. All applicable institutional and/or national guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed in this study. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Copyright: Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",
year = "2020",
month = feb,
doi = "10.1111/mec.15336",
language = "English",
volume = "29",
pages = "485--501",
journal = "Molecular Ecology",
issn = "0962-1083",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell ",
number = "3",
}