A molecular phylogeny of the genus Proctophyllodes (Acari = Astigmata) with implications of cospeciation in North American Passeriformes

The feather mite genus Proctophylloides is found on the flight feathers of birds (remiges and retrices) and seems to be the dominant group on Northern Passerine species. In a perfect model of cospeciation, parasite and host phylogenies mirror one another, which is called strict cospeciation. This has been found in some other bird mite parasites. In order to test if cospeciation has occurred, we amplified and sequenced a section of the nuclear large-subunit 28S rRNA gene (divergent domain regions D1-D5) to infer a molecular phylogeny for the genus Protophylloides. This is then compared to the bird host phylogenetic tree composed from previously published avian sequence data. The two phylogenies are tested using TreeMap to determine if significant cophylogeny has occurred.