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How can we determine the molecular clock of malaria parasites?

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Author

Summary, in English

The association of contemporary hosts and their parasites might reflect either cospeciation or more recent shifts among existing hosts. Cospeciation implies that lineages of hosts and parasites diverge in parallel at the same time, but testing this prediction requires time-calibrated phylogenies, which are particularly difficult to obtain in organisms that leave few fossils. It has successively become clear that host shifts have been frequent in the evolutionary history of malaria parasites, but dating these host shifts cannot be done without calibrated phylogenies. Hence, it remains unresolved how long contemporary hosts and vectors have been coevolving with their malaria parasites. This review addresses conflicting rate estimates of molecular evolution and suggests research directions to aid dating diversification events in malaria parasites.

Publishing year

2013

Language

English

Pages

363-369

Publication/Series

Trends in Parasitology

Volume

29

Issue

8

Document type

Journal article review

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Biological Sciences

Keywords

  • apicomplexa
  • birds
  • cospeciation
  • host shifts
  • mitochondrial DNA
  • Plasmodium
  • rate calibration

Status

Published

Project

  • Malaria in birds

Research group

  • Molecular Ecology and Evolution Lab

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1471-5007