Life Sciences Commons^™

Effects Of Tectonics And Large Scale Climatic Changes On The Evolutionary History Of Hyalomma Ticks, Arthur F. Sands, Dmitry A. Apanaskevich, Sonja Matthee, Ivan G. Horak, Alan Harrison, Shahid Karim, Mohammad K. Mohammad, Kosta Y. Mumcuoglu, Rupika S. Rajakaruna, Maria M. Santos-Silva, Joshua Kamani, Conrad A. Matthee

Faculty Publications

Hyalomma Koch, 1844 are ixodid ticks that infest mammals, birds and reptiles, to which 27 recognized species occur across the Afrotropical, Palearctic and Oriental regions. Despite their medical and veterinary importance, the evolutionary history of the group is enigmatic. To investigate various taxonomic hypotheses based on morphology, and also some of the mechanisms involved in the diversification of the genus, we sequenced and analysed data derived from two mtDNA fragments, three nuclear DNA genes and 47 morphological characters. Bayesian and Parsimony analyses based on the combined data (2242 characters for 84 taxa) provided maximum resolution and strongly supported the monophyly …