The traditional classification of avian Haemosporida is based mainly on morphology and life history traits. Recently, molecular hypotheses have challenged the traditional classification, leading to contradictory opinions on whether morphology is phylogenetically informative. However, the morphology has never been used to reconstruct the relationships within the group. We inferred the phylogeny of avian Haemosporida from 133 morphological characters present in blood stages. We included all species with at least one mitochondrial gene characterized (n = 93). In order to recover the evolutionary history and identify phylogenetically and taxonomically informative characters, they were mapped on the total evidence phylogeny. We identified a unique combination of morphological traits, clearly differentiating avian Haemosporida genera, sub-genera of Leucocytozoon and Haemoproteus, and some Plasmodium sub-genera. Plasmodium had the highest number of synapomorphies. Furthermore, 86% of the species presented a unique combination of taxonomically informative characters. The combination of morphology and mtDNA proved to be a robust alternative to reconstruct the relationships among avian Haemosporida, obtaining a resolution and support similar to that obtained using full mitochondrial genome sequences for over 100 lineages.
Citation: Hernández-Lara C, Espinosa de los Monteros A, Ibarra-Cerdeña CN, García-Feria L, Santiago-Alarcon D. 2018. Combining morphological and molecular data to reconstruct the phylogeny of avian Haemosporida. International Journal for Parasitology 48: 1137-1148
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