RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 The dynamics of preferential host switching: host phylogeny as a key predictor of parasite prevalence and distribution JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 209254 DO 10.1101/209254 A1 Jan Engelstäedter A1 Nicole Z. Fortuna YR 2018 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/02/27/209254.abstract AB New parasites commonly arise through host-shifts, where parasites from one host species jump to and become established in a new host species. There is much evidence that the probability of host-shifts decreases with increasing phylogenetic distance between donor and recipient hosts, but the consequences of such preferential host switching remain little explored. We develop a mathematical model to investigate the dynamics of parasite host-shifts in the presence of this phylogenetic distance effect. Host trees evolve under a stochastic birth-death process and parasites co-evolve concurrently on those trees, undergoing host-shifts, co-speciation and extinction. Our model indicates that host trees have a major influence on these dynamics. This applies both to individual trees that evolved under the same stochastic process and to sets of trees that evolved with different macroevolutionary parameters. We predict that trees consisting of a few large clades of host species and those with fast species turnover should harbour more parasites than trees with many small clades and those that diversify more slowly. Within trees, large clades should exhibit a higher infection frequency than small clades. We discuss our results in the light of recent cophylogenetic studies in a wide range of host-parasite systems, including the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia.