Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Feb 5;21(2):e1012911.
doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1012911. eCollection 2025 Feb.

Imprudent use of MalAvi names biases the estimation of parasite diversity of avian haemosporidians

Juliana Tamayo-Quintero  1 , Josué Martínez-de la Puente  2   3 , Nubia E Matta  4 , M Andreína Pacheco  5 , Héctor F Rivera-Gutierrez  1
Affiliations

Imprudent use of MalAvi names biases the estimation of parasite diversity of avian haemosporidians

Juliana Tamayo-Quintero et al. PLoS Pathog. .
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Relationship between the number of synonymies and the length (number of base pairs) of avian haemosporidian cyt-b sequences reported in MalAvi.
Different colors correspond to the 3 genera analyzed.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Visualization of the alignment close to N-terminal of the cyt-b gene synonymous sequences of the Leucocytozoon sp. lineage SILUT01.
The 446 bp sequence reported in MalAvi and the 506 bp fragment from Genbank (EF153660) are included and compared with the 5 synonyms SPIPAS07, PHEMEL01, MELLIN02, DENCOR06, and CNEORN01. Differences between some of these lineages emerged in green when GenBank sequences were considered and compared with fragments included in MalAvi.
Fig 3
Fig 3. The number of parasites cyt-b gene lineages with synonymies reported by subcontinents.
Different colors correspond to the 3 genera analyzed. Overall, 66 different lineages corresponding to Haemoproteus (23), Leucocytozoon (14), and Plasmodium (29) are found in more than one subcontinent. In these cases, lineages are included in each subcontinent.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Kattan GH, Tello SA, Giraldo M, Cadena CD. Neotropical bird evolution and 100 years of the enduring ideas of Frank M. Chapman Biol J Linn Soc. 2016;117:407–413. doi: 10.1111/bij.12720 - DOI
    1. Velasco JA, Pinto-Ledezma JN. Mapping species diversification metrics in macroecology: Prospects and challenges. Front Ecol Evol. 2022;10:951271. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2022.951271 - DOI
    1. Morand S, Krasnov BR, Littlewood DTJ. Parasite diversity and diversification. Cambridge University Press; 2015.
    1. Pacheco MA, Matta NE, Valkiūnas G, Parker PG, Mello B, Stanley CE, et al. Mode and Rate of Evolution of Haemosporidian Mitochondrial Genomes: Timing the Radiation of Avian Parasites. Mol Biol Evol. 2018;35:383–403. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msx285 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pacheco MA, Escalante AA. Origin and diversity of malaria parasites and other Haemosporida. Trends Parasitol. 2023;39:501–516. doi: 10.1016/j.pt.2023.04.004 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources