Molecular diversification of Trichuris spp. from Sigmodontinae (Cricetidae) rodents from Argentina based on mitochondrial DNA sequences

A molecular phylogenetic hypothesis is presented for the genus Trichuris based on sequence data from mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase 1 (cox1) and cytochrome b (cob). The taxa consisted of nine populations of whipworm from five species of Sigmodontinae rodents from Argentina. Bayesian Inference, Maximum Parsimony, and Maximum Likelihood methods were used to infer phylogenies for each gene separately but also for the combined mitochondrial data and the combined mitochondrial and nuclear dataset. Phylogenetic results based on cox1 and cob mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) revealed three clades strongly resolved corresponding to three different species (Trichuris navonae, Trichuris bainae, and Trichuris pardinasi) showing phylogeographic variation, but relationships among Trichuris species were poorly resolved. Phylogenetic reconstruction based on concatenated sequences had greater phylogenetic resolution for delimiting species and populations intra-specific of Trichuris than those based on partitioned genes. Thus, populations of T. bainae and T. pardinasi could be affected by geographical factors and co-divergence parasite-host.