@article{790c94003285436282504e0b1e3f864c,
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 = "international, Borrelia garinii, host-parasite interactions, Lyme borreliosis, migration, ticks, birds, Plan_S-Compliant_NO",
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 = "6925, AnE; Data Archiving: Data archived at Borrelia MLST database Borrelia sp. “Candidatus Borrelia aligera” 16S rRNA and clpX gene partial sequences obtained in this study have been deposited in GenBank with the accession numbers MH068784 and MH157920, respectively. Borrelia garinii MLST sequences have been deposited in Borrelia MLST database (https://pubmlst.org/borrelia/) with the isolate id numbers 2451 to 2479.",
year = "2020",
doi = "10.1111/mec.15336",
language = "English",
volume = "29",
journal = "Molecular Ecology",
issn = "0962-1083",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "3",
}