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. 2025 Aug;63(4):3465-3478.
doi: 10.1007/s10528-024-10886-3. Epub 2024 Jul 13.

First Insight into the Phylogenetic Diversity of Bovicola caprae Infesting Goats of Different Agro-climatic Locations in India

Aman D Moudgil  1 , Anil K Nehra  2 , Ankur Sharma  3 , Santosh Patel  2 , Sukhdeep Vohra  2
Affiliations

First Insight into the Phylogenetic Diversity of Bovicola caprae Infesting Goats of Different Agro-climatic Locations in India

Aman D Moudgil et al. Biochem Genet. 2025 Aug.

Abstract

Bovicola caprae is an important obligate ectoparasite of goats worldwide including India. The present study aimed at the molecular confirmation, phylogenetics and population structure analyses of B. caprae infesting goats of three different agro-climatic locations in India, by targeting the mitochondrial cytochrome C oxidase subunit 1 (cox1) genetic marker. The phylogenetic tree exhibited the presence of two different lineages of B. caprae. The sequences generated herein clustered in lineage 2 along with the GenBank™ archived sequences from China and Iran. The sequences generated herein also showed the circulation of sub-lineages of B. caprae in India based on the analysis of pairwise genetic distances between sequences and median-joining haplotype network. The population structure analyses revealed low nucleotide (0.00353 ± 0.00291 and 0.02694 ± 0.00363) and high haplotype (0.667 ± 0.314 and 0.618 ± 0.104) diversities for the present study isolates as well as for the complete dataset, respectively, which evinced a recent demographic expansion. High genetic differentiation (FST value = 0.97826) and low gene flow (Nm = 0.00556) were also recorded in the different lineages/populations. In conclusion, the present study addressed the research gap and provided the first insight into the phylogenetics of the goat louse B. caprae and highlighted the circulation of sub-lineages of the ectoparasite in India.

Keywords: Bovicola caprae; cox1; Goat louse; Molecular confirmation; Phylogenetics; Population structure.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors report there are no competing interests to declare. Consent to Participate: Not applicable. Consent for Publication: Not applicable. Ethical Approval: The research work was carried out with the permission (VCC/IAEC/2022/1679-1705) of Institutional Animal Ethics Committee of Lala Lajpat Rai University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Hisar, Haryana, India.

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